Chosen
by LilGreenImp
Summary: What does it mean to be Chosen? Activating the potentials changes everything, Buffy most of all.
1. CHOSEN I A Slayer Reborn

**Summary: **In every generation there is a chosen one. This story was caused by my thoughts on this phrase and the consequences of empowering the potentials.

**Disclaimer: **All characters, concepts and locations from Buffy the Vampire Slayer belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions. I do not own Highlander, the characters and locations used from the series are the property of Davis-Panzer Productions.

I have probably used themes/ideas which originated in other fiction/fan fiction, I read too much for this not to happen, no offense/infringement is intended by this (I usually don't know where my ideas come from but I do know better than to claim they are original). If this refers to you, please remember that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The only things here I can claim as my own is the specific order of words which follows (mostly forming coherent sentences).

**Spoilers: **While possibly not considered a spoiler any more, this story starts as the penultimate series of Buffy ends and may mention events in the show. I know little about Angel beyond what was connected to Buffy, I have been informed this has caused me to write something inaccurate... therefore let me say it here - Angel canon will not be adhered to.

**Feedback: **Is what keeps me writing. I read and appreciate every review I get (yes even the 'Update soon' ones, though I do adore a well rounded comment/criticism).

**Additional Disclaimer: **Originally some phrases in this were very similar to ones in Faithunbreakable's fic 'Nobody Ever Asked'. This was unintentional, and it took me a while to write an adequate replacement for those emotive lines (and I guess they're probably still quite similar since they have the same emotions behind them). Her story is a beautiful Harry Potter crossover dealing with Buffy post-Chosen.

* * *

**Chosen**

_What does it mean to be Chosen? Activating the potentials changes everything, Buffy most of all._

* * *

_**Prologue - A Slayer Reborn**_

_**In every generation, there is a chosen one,**_

_**She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness.**_

_**She is the slayer.**_

* * *

Buffy stood on the edge of the chasm that had been her hometown looking down. Lost in the destruction they had caused, she dimly heard someone ask, "What do you want to do now?"

_ What do I want to do now?_

It had been so long since she had even thought about that question.

Rarely in the past couple of years had her plans run further ahead than the next day or week. Beyond the current threat she had to defeat. She had saved the world once again... Saved the world. That used to be such a simple concept.

She, they, had fought to protect themselves countless times from the attention of various foes. And if in the course of staying alive they happened to prevent the destruction of the world as we know it… well they patted themselves on the back doubly hard and carried on. Waiting until the next enemy came along that needed more planning to defeat than the average nest of vampires.

But this time saving the world had meant leading an army of unprepared teens into the bowels of hell and turning them into something more, knowing that there wasn't a chance they would all get out. This time to save the world they had changed it.

She was now a Slayer not the Slayer. It may have appeared as if her duty was shared with friends, family, even other slayers; but Buffy had always ultimately fought alone. She was the one all looked to when things were truly bleak. The respite granted by assistance was all too fleeting, the responsibility resting solely on her.

Now there was nothing left to fight. Weeks, months, years with her duty shared by others eager to bear her burdens were spread before her. Without a purpose. Without an end.

It didn't feel real, not with the call of the grave she'd crawled out of singing through her veins, reminding her that the life she led wasn't hers anymore. That it should have ended for good two years previously, her body lifeless even before it crashed onto the concrete.

Perhaps her friends had been right in doubting her intent as she pushed for attacks, encouraging any fight that might challenge her, praying that every wound would be fatal. That each adversary would be the one to best her. Pushing her skills to the edge in a desperate attempt to reclaim what had been taken from her. Forcing herself to the edges of her ability where somehow there were always reasons to live on, to fight to the bitter end; always something else bigger, bader she still had to defeat. To protect those who had so easily betrayed her.

Since they brought her back, leaving her to push her way out through the soil she'd forced herself to function, found ways to live from one day to the next and one of these was the unfounded belief that there was some purpose in it all. That they wouldn't have managed to get her back unless there was something she was needed for, someone she must defeat.

And behind this the thought, not even voiced in her own mind, that if there was a purpose then, once it was all done, once the world had again escaped the grasp of evil, she could return.

Yet here she was. Still standing after it all. After the world she had known for the past seven years had literally crumbled beneath them. This shadow of a life would continue even though there were now hundreds with the strength to take over the sacred duty that had been hers.

These children who might be told of the lessons Buffy had gained in blood and tears, but would never really understand that it would take more than this new power to fight the battles of a warrior.

These mockeries of slayers who would never learn that to be a Chosen One you had to be alone, alone in the crux of the battle when the responsibility for the world feels like a deadweight on your shoulders. Alone in your last moments when the exit from the never-ending war is finally within reach.

* * *

Buffy felt the adrenaline of the fight drain out of her system and pain racked through her midsection. Perhaps the ultimate prize hadn't escaped her as it had so often before. A faint smile crossed her face as blood started to pool at her feet. Blood loss and exhaustion finally took their toll on her body and she slumped to the ground. Supposedly when you die, your life flashes before your eyes as you fade. As the pain became less intense in a way that had nothing to do with healing, visions and voices bombarded Buffy.

Not just her life, but what seemed like the lives of countless slayers assailed her. She fought innumerable battles, prevented thousands of apocalypses, died over and over again. Each time feeling the peace of knowing that the battle had ended, returning to that place of love and light, only to be reborn, recalled and eventually, killed once more.

As she slipped into oblivion, Buffy recognised the voice that has been haunting her thoughts as it whispered over the memories with its final words.

_You think you know who you are, what is to come? You have only just begun. _

* * *

Hundreds of potentials around the world had been empowered by Willow's spell. When Buffy hit the ground hundreds of slayers joined her, falling to the earth when the power left, sensing the imminent ruin of the one place it belonged.

'In every generation there is a Chosen One.' Strange when you think of it… 'In every generation' yet here were hundreds of girls with the potential in one generation waiting to be called. Few realised the truth in those words. In each generation there were many slayers, more with the potential than could ever be needed, but there is only and will only ever be one Chosen.

The power of the slayer, unlocked and reaching its full potential rejuvenated the body. It rose from the dust glowing with an unearthly aura as the energy enhanced senses and muscles.

A slayer taps into more and more power as they age, became used to their strengths, but never had more than a fraction of the true slayer essence been unleashed. Until now.

Every cell in her body was healed and then strengthened. The air around crackled with waves of energy pouring from her skin, surrounded her with a blinding light.

* * *

Buffy awoke to the sound of a crackling campfire and the endless noise of the dessert winds rushing over sand, the desert from her vision quest. As with the last time she came to this place, she saw the first slayer through the flicker of flames.

This time the first slayer was not alone, she was flanked by girls whose appearance and clothing gave them vastly varying nationalities, spread them through time, with most aged between 18 and 25 years old. Buffy focussed on the obvious spokesperson for the Slayers. The first of their kind. "Am I about to get a repeat viewing of slayers through the ages, or are you gonna tell me what's going on?"

**"You know."**

She wanted to refute the statement but in a way it was true. There was an answer to all this jumping up and down in the back of her mind begging to be acknowledged.

** "You have remembered us, we have come." **

As she… they spoke a longer sentence Buffy realised what had been so odd about the voice, the one that had echoed through the visions. The lips of all the slayers standing around the fire moved when the First spoke, all saying the same thing but not the same words. They all spoke in their own native tongue.

Spanish, French and English were prominent but there were others… so many others that they were masked by the drone of modern languages, and somewhere trapped beneath everything that made sense was the low guttural utterances of the first slayer communicating.

_All the slayers spoke as one… _

Her mind turned that thought over and over trying to reach a different conclusion to discard the understanding she'd reached when she saw the lives of all these girls as her own.

Buffy finally accepted the truth, and all the slayers converged to leave behind… her own image. With a voice that still consisted of hundreds, thousands of interlaced voices speaking simultaneously she spoke.

** "We are the Chosen. We are one" **

She could see their lives. But now as a pose to being haunting visions, Buffy accepted them for what they were; memories. She was them, they were her.

The image of herself flickered and changed form hundreds of times, and each was as familiar as the face in a mirror. The figure stepped forward through the flames then into her and peace washed over Buffy as her soul was completed.


	2. CHOSEN II The Chosen One

**_The Chosen One_**

Buffy awoke to the sound of soft snoring with the dim predawn light washing over her face through a gap in heavy curtains. The room was bare and musty, an old hotel room that could only be Angel's.

She took in the contents of the room. Bed, dresser, chair. A second door that she assumed opened into an en-suite. A scuffed carpet on the floor.

The minimum required to make a room bearable. Nothing that came even close to making it seem lived in, homely. This room had never been loved. It was just a place to be. That seemed apt in some way.

_Buffy blinked ._

While she consciously observed her surroundings her instincts had focused on the only other person in the room, and had reacted immediately to the unexpected presence of company. Curled up on the chair, with a blade to her neck, was Faith.

Buffy hadn't even noticed that she had moved, much less thought about drawing the knife from the sheath on Faith's leg, but fear drawn of centuries of mistrust had done it for her. Surprised for a moment that that it was not a Scooby watching over her, the blade still hadn't been moved when the sleeping girl awoke.

_Her steady brown gaze met Buffy's as the knife was lowered_

"Sorry, I'm used to waking up alone" as soon as the words left her mouth Buffy frowned. No, that wasn't true. She was used to being surrounded by the annoying brat-like potentials. At all times.

_That was all it took, a couple of blinks, half a dozen breaths. _

From waking to having the memories flood back. She was The Slayer. She was The Chosen One. She still had more wars to fight. Alone.

_Always alone._

Buffy wasn't used to waking up alone but hundreds of wary lifetimes, when sleeping lightly was all that stood between her and a quiet death in the night, meant that instinctually she assumed anything near her in the night was a threat. And if that doesn't tell you something about the average slayer's love life nothing will.

Her new memories had somewhat integrated themselves into the ones that belonged to Buffy, but were only vaguely ordered to the extent that she remembered the Persian court, and something about the Incas, but had no clue which came before the others.

The more recent memories were more continuous, shared global history making it easier to place which lifetime had come before the other. She could remember everyone she'd been. But the first memory was the worst, the most prominent.

_**She felt the cold weight of bindings around her wrists and saw them attached to the ground as she looked around helplessly at her surroundings trying to find a way to escape. She felt so strange, so weak._

_There were three men with her, the tribal shamans. One bought a box to the centre of a circle marked on the floor and opened it as they continually chanted._

_Black smoke emerged from the box in long tentacles. She struggled against her restraints in vain as the black smoke came toward her, entering her body through her nose and ears. As the smoke seeped into every particle of her being a rush of pure power went through her._

_She was now strong enough to escape her confinement. She left the men behind as she rushed out, blindly running away from her tormentors. Finally slowing her impossible pace when she reached a stream._

_This was how she felt when she had been called, when the power of the slayer had first joined with her. Scared. Of her new strength and senses. Everything was magnified, finally coming into focus. She looked into the water and the face of the first slayer, her face looked back.**_

That was who she was, what she was. Where it all started. Buffy could feel the strength, the enhanced senses, all increasing as she rid herself of the last dregs of sleep. Faith's heartbeat was a quickly beating drum, resounding through her head. She could hear, word for word, the conversation a family was having over dinner two blocks away. Sebastian had got into Harvard. Good for him. Her 'spider sense' told her there were six vamp nests nearby. And that was without stretching her senses.

There was definitely a reason a new slayer didn't get the full package. She had built up control of her abilities over the years, and without that, Buffy knew she would have been doubled over in pain as the noise, smells, and vivid sights assailed her senses. Meditation was a necessary skill for a slayer. Without it you go insane.

Bringing herself inwards, back to the room, she tried unsuccessfully to return to a form of normality. With such strong forces to contain she could only reduce it to the sort of state she used to keep on a patrol, hyper alert for anything unexpected.

Without noises outside the hotel distracting her Buffy could hear the rest of the gang downstairs and knew she'd have to face them soon. Trying to curb the restlessness this constant state of vigilance was giving her, she focused on Faith and for the first time saw fear in her eyes.

Fear of what Buffy had become.

"I'm going to go downstairs. I don't want to have to explain this more than once."

* * *

With those words Buffy left the room without a backwards glance to check if she was followed. Faith recalled the rush of power that had built up and flowed out of the other slayer as she woke and realised she didn't need to. Buffy no longer needed to look to see if she was coming, if she even cared.

But there was never really a thought of not complying. Even though Buffy's words had been more of a statement than a demand, telling her what the blonde planned and letting Faith decide her own course. It was more that there was something about the aura around her that drew you in.

Well that and she wanted to know what the fuck was going on. That was the real reason Faith followed her out of the room.

* * *

When Buffy stepped out onto the top of the stairs descending into the huge lobby every face in the room turned her way. There wasn't a logical reason for it; she moved without a sound in the off-putting fluid movements that she only purposefully adopted when she was hunting or knew herself to be hunted. Using achingly slow movements that somehow made her travel faster than your head told you she could; hiding in the fact that after each step an observer had to force their eyes from the place they expected her to be to where she had ended up.

There was something though, a feeling that flowed into the room before her and instantly made its occupants aware that someone important had joined them. Many of the watching faces now wore faint smiles, forgetting the worry that had been filling the hall moments before.

Buffy was here.

Despite her appearance, the blood stained clothes that had been ruined by battle long before she slept in them and fixed the creases in shape. Regardless of the tight almost pained expression on her face as she held back the thing that tried to overwhelm her. She felt safe.

She had a power, a glow that drew you to her. It spoke of strength and protection. In a small way it had always been there. A subtle aura that told the rescued not to be afraid of the small girl that had just destroyed large vampires with super strength. But now it seemed to flow out form her in waves.

The whole hotel was a safe haven. It made you feel at peace, cared for, loved. It felt like home.

Even with the contentment flowing through the hall, a few faces still bore signs of worry. The Scoobies were too desensitised from years of exposure to be put off from the mystery at hand.

Buffy sighed as she looked around her. It was the watcher-raised potentials that would take this the worst. They had been bought up to believe that, if worthy, they would be chosen to protect their world. With their dislike of Buffy obvious in their mutiny, it would be hard to convince them that the blissful power of the slayer which had run through them for a short time did not belong to them.

A few of the potentials still looked at her with resentment but that was nothing to Kennedys' murderous gaze, that girl who had thrown her whole life into what she may become. Never doubting that one day she would be called.

"What did you do to us?" Kennedy growled, she stepped forward in a movement that would have intimidated most people Buffy's size; using her larger body to make the older girl feel small in comparison.

It was the same kind of attempt at control as those she had made on arriving in Sunnydale. Before she really understood that it had been a long time since mere height had intimidated the blonde. But in her anger, Kennedy was reverting to what she knew best, not thinking straight enough to realise that angering Buffy was not the best idea when her whole body was tense and ready. Humming with the urge to fight.

Luckily for the brunette her girlfriend wasn't so oblivious, glancing warily at Buffy as she pulled the girl back, attempting to calm her. But what stopped Kennedy from vocalizing her thoughts more wasn't the redheads' touch; it was the eerily cold smile that appeared on the chosen ones face.

For a moment a familiar power washed over Kennedy, she could feel Buffy assessing her worth as an adversary, and then it was gone the calculating expression was replaced with one of amusement. Kennedy knew herself to have been judged but what riled most was the mockingly raised eyebrow that told her the verdict.

"What Kennedy meant to ask, was do you know what happened? All the slayers collapsed. And you were all with the glowy. Now they don't feel anything. They're still stronger than usual but definitely not slayers. And you were talking in your sleep - in Sumerian! When did you learn to speak that anyway? We thought it was just gibberish but when you slowed down Dawn recognised some words. And Faith said you were still a slayer, oh and the scythe gets all glowy around you. What's with that. And…"

Willow broke off when Buffy's eyes met hers. Though her physical appearance wasn't changed there was something in her eyes that betrayed her, giving away what had happened. Always aged far beyond her years their hazel depths now contained the knowledge and sorrow of millennia.

"I'm not entirely sure what's going on" Kennedy snorted in disbelief, a scepticism which the following wave of disgruntled murmuring indicated was shared by the other potentials. "I really don't know… not why your powers have gone." She glanced at Faith, sensing the difference there, that she hadn't lost as much, "We can try to work out…"

All the room could tell that only the scoobies were contained in that 'we' knowing from past experience that the core group would make their decisions then tell the rest what they thought they needed to know.

The chorus of discontented mutterings intensified, "we deserve to know too." being the general consensus among the potentials, or former potentials.

She'd barely paid attention to who had survived before, not wanting to look over the girls she had taken into hell and see the missing faces. Buffy saw that the ones who had survived were almost entirely the girls like Kennedy.

The ones who lived and breathed because they might one day become The Slayer. That had let training become all they did. In a way it was proof positive that the Council's methods of isolating potentials turned them into better Slayers. At least for the short term.

Kennedy, seemingly their spokesperson, told Buffy in a barely controlled rage, "You took our powers away. We _will_know what you've done and, when we fix it, I'm gonna show you what a real slayer is." She still failed to realise that it would take far more than some physical enhancements to make Buffy change her previous assessment. It wasn't about strength, it was the girl's attitude which was lacking.

With her boredom of Kennedy's self perceived importance clearly written on her face, Buffy cocked her head at the group "Ok then, stay." she kept her attention on Kennedy, dark humour evident in her eyes.

The room seemed to let out a breath when Buffy failed to attack the stubborn brunette for her outburst, not knowing that the coming explanation would cause the girl far more lasting pain. The glint of satisfaction in eyes fixed on the potential should have warned them of what was to come.

_ I'm going to enjoy this. They want to know. They can have it and live with it. _

Buffy glanced across to Faith where she stood away from the group by the stairwell. She, more even than the scoobies, deserved to know what had happened. Locking eyes with her equal, her opposite; her friend and nemesis, Buffy began her tale.

"Most of you probably heard what we found out about the origin of slayers. But for those of you that only know the Council's fairytale version, I'll begin there. As some very stuck up shaman once wrote 'First, there was the Earth. Then there came the demons. After demons, there came men. The men found a girl.' The men took the demons power and forced it into her.

"It made her strong; they created the first slayer.

"They sent her to fight the demons and, when she fell protecting them, her power was passed on to another with a spirit strong enough to house the power; who was called upon by the Shadow Men to fight. And so the slayer line continued through the ages. Watched over by the descendants of the Shadow Men who eventually became the Watchers Council."

A few of the potentials seemed interested in this mythology, but most were merely impatient. This was all very well and good but they wanted to know why the thing that had bonded with them and given them power had been so viciously ripped back out.

"I'm sure you've all heard of reincarnation. A person is reincarnated when she dies?"

"Can you just get to the point? This isn't story time." snapped the most impatient potential.

"Willow can you please get your girlfriend to control herself for five minutes?" Buffy asked wearily, the constant annoyance of the girl beginning to try at her control. Kennedy's stare was pure murder, but the comfort of being pulled into Willow's arms allowed her to bite back any retorts, Willow nodded at her friend to continue the story.

"The soul of the first slayer was reborn as a baby girl who…" Buffy paused for a moment before continuing, lost in events long past, "inevitably became a slayer."

"This continued through time. The slayers essence so to speak going into others as well but invariably granting power to the original. When I collapsed on the edge of the cliff I saw the lives of all these slayers, until it reached the last incarnation of the first slayer. Me."

The revelation caused not more anger but shocked silence, those that knew Watcher mythology surprised that anyone would dare to claim such heritage.

Xander, as ever, was the one to break the tension "So does that mean I should take the heart thing personally Buff, cause that dream was kinda painfully intense."

Buffy looked at the man. It was amazing that even with the cost of battles written on his face he could still joke, "I guess we don't like company in this body. There's enough of us here already without three more." she smiled gratefully at Xander for easing some of the tension. Though most of the potentials didn't get the comment, that didn't matter. It was the Scoobies, them and Faith who now also stood by her, drawn closer by Buffy's attention during her story, that she wanted to understand.

"When I was unconscious I had a… vision, I met with the first slayer. She showed me all I have been and something happened. I now have the memory of all our incarnations in my head." she looked at Willow with a shrug, "I guess that's how I know Sumerian."

"So you're saying not only do you now have millennia of slaying experience, you also know ancient languages?" asked her former Watcher, furiously cleaning his glasses.

Buffy couldn't help but smile, comforted by the familiar gesture, "Well I guess I know all the ones that have been my native tongue, so yeah… oh and all the modern languages, of course." she added as an afterthought.

"Of course" Giles mumbled, feeling even more redundant. He had already been told that she no longer needed his guidance, but now even his knowledge was becoming obsolete.

"Well that's pretty much all I know. Though I definitely haven't lost my slayer powers like the others. More of the opposite really. I feel loads stronger and faster than before."

The potential's interest waned as they realised that Buffy really didn't have an explanation for the loss of their powers. This had been about Buffy not them. The Scooby's however silently mulled it over, each approaching the mystery from their own perspective. Eventually, Willow reached a conclusion.

"Ferula-gemina"

"Err, yes Willow feral gem." Buffy looked up at her Watcher questioningly, who merely shrugged, just as baffled as his former charge.

"You remember, when that demon split Xander in two?" Buffy and Giles nodded, both understanding the reference, but not the relevance to their current problem. "He was meant to be one being, so it was easy to put him back together. What if the… essence… of the slayer is the same." comprehension flooded over Giles' features.

"Of course. Its natural state is to be one entity, in one slayer at a time. So it was pulled back together. With Buffy's lineage as the reincarnation of the first slayer. It was naturally drawn to her!" Giles looked around in triumph only to see Willows disgruntled face.

"Well yeah. I just figured that out" she mumbled.

"But with two Me...s Willow still had to end the spell on us. She had to stop the power forcing me into two. It's not like Willow decided to end the spell making all the slayers." Xander leveled a mock suspicious gaze on the witch in question, "Unless you've been holding out on us Will?"

Buffy suddenly understood, responding before Willow could react to Xander's teasing.

"It was me." she whispered. At her friends unanimous reaction of 'huh' she explained "I was hurt, dying I think. Then I was seeing all those lives... and the pain was gone. I think the spell broke because the slayer wanted to save me." she suddenly thought about what she had been saying "God, I sound so self involved. Everyone loses their powers and it's all about me."

"Well yeah B, but we already knew that you thought that so it's ok." Faith teased, earning herself a slap that would have seriously injured anyone else.

"If you want to find out for sure what's going on I spoke to Angel while you were out of it, having mystical rendezvous with the first slayer…" Faith frowned, "or yourself…" she paused again, before shrugging, the decision that it didn't matter clearing her expression, "whatever. He suggested we visit the Oracles and ask them what's the what. Seemed to think they could help with lost powers."

* * *

And so Buffy came to be standing in a chamber underneath the post office looking at a white stone arch in the wall.

_ 'Gateway for lost souls'_well I'm definitely lost.

Willow sprinkled some herbs into an urn, "We beseech access to the knowing ones.." she dropped a lit match into the urn and it burst into flames. The arch started glowing and filled with light. She looked at Buffy, "You're up."

She took a step forward, and then looked back at Faith who was holding tightly to an ornate axe 'borrowed' from Angel's armoury, unwilling to face anything this strange without a weapon in her hands, "Aren't you coming?"

Faith had been chosen to represent the potentials when Buffy made it clear that she would be leading this expedition, and Kennedy wasn't welcome to join. Causing the girl to leave the room in a huff muttering derogatory comments about Buffy's ability to lead.

That girl was oddly hypocritical in her views; she had a belief that even the potential to be a slayer gave her some standing above others, but didn't translate this into respect for those that were slayers.

They stepped through the gateway into a white marble chamber filled with a bright light that didn't seem to have a source, as if the stones themselves were shining. In front of them stood two figures, one male, one female, both glittering in the ambient light but also producing an inner glow all of their own. The effect was blindingly brilliant.

** "Come before us, lower beings."**intoned the male figure, a stern expression on his face.

**"What have you brought us?"**asked the woman when the slayers both stood directly below the dominating figures.

"We were supposed to bring gifts?" Buffy turned to Faith, "Did Angel say anything about presents?"

**"You call us forth and bring us no offering?" **

Faith shrugged and chucked Angels' axe at the 'man'.

Though the man seemed unimpressed by the offering, the woman nodded contentedly, satisfied with what they had given, **"A weapon is the gift of a true warrior."**

** "Well?"**he prompted after a moment of silence.

"What's happened to me?" Buffy asked.

**"You have found yourself." **He replied simply, leaving it to his partner elaborate.

**"Through the ages, The Slayer sought for you. You were the first, and though its essence has been housed in other shells that were deemed strong enough, it always returned to you. Your Soul and The Slayer are bonded so it felt the loss of you akin to the loss of a true soul mate.**

**"Into every generation you were reborn, and through many lives the slayer waited in other bodies until it deemed you ready. You are the Chosen One. The soul of The Slayer."**

"So you weren't jokin' about that shit huh B? But why have the potentials lost their strength?"

**"It was unnatural for The Slayer to be split. When The Chosen One was dying The Slayer's essence overcame the spell and re-joined with her to save her." **He paused and some anger came into his voice as he continued, **"But power was released to feed so many, power that hadn't been freed since the demons essence was first bound to choose potential souls, and there was no way to trap it once more." **the man looked intently at Buffy**"You now have all the power of the slayer."**

Without giving them time to think what this could mean the woman's voice replaced the mans, flowing with the continuity of one thought, one being. **"You will heal in minutes. Stay youthful as those around you wither. Gain strength, even more than that which you now posses. You have an eternity to live. Use it wisely." **

As all this information hit her, Buffy sank to her knees. She had known that she had changed, that for some reason she'd been bought back from the brink of death and made stronger than ever. But this… to still be stuck here away from that place of peace without a hope of an end.

To live forever. That was unbearable.

"But why do I still have my strength?" Faith asked, pressing for the answers they needed despite Buffy's despondency.

**"You were the slayer for a long period of time. It alters you; body and soul when it bonds with you, making you stronger. This is not removed. **

**"It is why the potentials that became slayers will always be stronger, faster and heal quicker than a normal person. As you were slayer for so long you still have the complete benefits of a slayer. You will be the last to be chosen, as she was the first."**

A sobering thought snapped Buffy out of her worries, "Won't there be… repercussions?" She gave Faith a fugitive glance before elaborating, hoping the other slayer wouldn't react badly to what she was about to reveal, "I know The First… it could attack because I wasn't meant to come back, I was meant to stay…" even now she didn't like to complete that sentence, hating to give voice to something she so craved.

**"Will this give more power to Evil?"** The woman clarified Buffys point in a voice that was uncommonly kind despite its aloofness,**"No, child." **She smiled sadly at Buffy as the man continued.

**"The First bought the Scythe back into play and so cannot use this tip in the balance to its benefit. The debt created by your resurrection has been repaid in full."**

Once again the woman added to what he said, not exactly finishing his sentence; but completing his paragraph,**"But remember everything we do creates a reaction and an Immortal Slayer will cause many waves…" **She paused, turning to her companion as if responding to an interruption neither of the slayers heard.

He had lost his serene expression, and when he spoke anger coated his tone,**"You have already told them too much."**Just as they had seemed so united moments before now they seemed terribly different. He raised his hand and both slayers flew out of the arch into the Scoobies waiting on the other side for their return.


	3. CHOSEN III Hard to Drown in the

**_Hard to Drown in the Shallow End_**

The bartender was worried. Correction. The bartender was terrified. The cause of this fear was the girl sitting at the bar.

She was slightly tipsy.

In a bar that wasn't usually a problem, a bars' sole purpose was to get people drunk, and the bartender's job was to supply the alcohol. When a cheerleader could drink over two bottles of whiskey and still be sitting upright; she was a problem. More so when she had two swords strapped across her back.

"Hit me."

The bartender immediately made her a double on ice, it wasn't a voice you could disobey, and returned to his worries. He'd seen 7ft demons lose consciousness after drinking half as much…

"Hit me."

…at a slower pace. He slid her another drink.

He'd seen those same demons edge out of the bar for fear of being recognised when the girl arrived.

* * *

Buffy was bored. She sat in the demon bar contemplating her next move and trying her best to get drunk. It wasn't working, her brain still worked depressingly well as her enhanced metabolism made short work of the alcohol.

In the past week she had systematically slain every violent demon in L.A. Where were all these apocalypses Angel boasted of? It was time to move on.

_What do I want to do now?_

Everyone seemed to have an idea what she should do. The most recent plan was for the Scoobies to go to guard the new… other Hellmouth.

When she had been uncooperative in their planning of her future, she had been 'given time' to deal with the Oracles revelations while her friends planned her life. Didn't they see that having time was what was wrong?

At least she didn't have to play den-mom to a crowd of potentials anymore. Somehow the assets of the Watchers Council had been accessed, through some act of computer wizardry… or witchery as the case may be.

Buffy laughed at her unspoken joke making the barkeeper jump like a startled rabbit at the unexpected sound coming from his stoic customer.

Now all the potentials and remaining watchers had trust funds. A poor replacement for a sacred duty, but they were cared for.

_Another shot slid down her throat._

Some of the potentials hadn't wanted to give it up; they'd formed bands of demon hunters unable to contemplate doing anything else with their lives. But most were put off by their experiences in Sunnydale and merely went to any home they had.

She was glad they were gone. Too many of them hadn't managed to hide the jealousy they felt that she had what they now knew would never again be theirs. One in particular would look her way with such hunger mixed with resentment that Buffy felt like yelling and shaking her until she finally understood that this wasn't what she wanted.

That the news had taken Buffy's hopes with it along with those of the potentials.

That her being 'Chosen' meant nothing. It was a curse not a boon, one she had gained entirely by luck, good or bad. Chosen because when her soul was young she had been past her first blood, a virgin, and biddable.

These were the qualities the Shadow men had looked for when they decided to transform a girl into a hero. The latter being the only trait which wasn't controlled by mere chance, and compliance wasn't something she had ever been proud of. How they hadn't seen her suppressed rebellion she didn't know, even then she had known how to act the part expected of you.

She had been unmarried and out of childhood, somehow this had caused her soul to be tied forever to that well of power, destined to protect the innocent for all time. And for this she had girls glaring at her with murder in their eyes; as if they wanted to test Buffy's immortality just for the chance to be next.

Kennedy had led one of the first bands when it was made clear that if she fought with Buffy, the slayer would make the decisions. That girl really couldn't stand authority… unless it was her of course. Buffy vaguely remembered it being mentioned that she was heading off to an Indian hotspot.

_Memo to me: find out where Ken went and avoid like the plague._

The last orders bell chimed. Buffy held up both hands to the barman and watched as a row of ten doubles were lined up on the bar. Downing them all in a minute flat she smiled as a light haze settled over her thoughts. Sweet oblivion.

* * *

Walking back to the hotel was annoyingly sobering. The scents on the warm air of a summer's night in the city. The subtle sounds of the night. The distant awareness of the city's now sole vampire inhabitant.

Her instincts telling her body to hunt, to fight. That now was the time her prey was weakest, as the suns impending presence stole the power from the night. Adrenalin flowed in preparation, ridding her body of toxins, readying her for the fight.

It took all her willpower to force herself towards her bed. With not only her own memories of Angelus but also those of her predecessors.

Memories of the massacres that spread across countries left in the wake of The Scourge of Europe… reminding her that behind his angelic face lay an enormous potential for destruction. No, The Powers needed all the champions they could get; killing one of the few would not aid her cause.

_I can control myself. I am more than a Slayer._

As the front of the Hyperion came into view, Angel thankfully dropped off her senses and the internal battle dulled. The urge to fight faded, though the desire to hunt wouldn't completely leave until dawn.

The low mumble of voices attempting discretion filtered through the heavy doors.

"… not sure she can."

"B..b..but it's Buffy"

"I'm not entirely certain it is."

Faith was leaning against a wall, not taking part in her friend's conversation, but mulling over their words. Giles seemed unsure of how to word his next sentence, and unconsciously cleaned his glasses as he sorted his thoughts.

"She suddenly has the memories of countless slayers. Centuries. Most of which would be a life alone, with a watcher, ending in a violent death. We can't even begin to understand the effect this would have on her."

"Angel…" Willow interrupted.

"I know Angel went through something akin to this when he returned, but there's no way to get them to get close enough for him to be of any help her. It was hard enough restraining her when he came to visit." And they wouldn't have been able to if Buffy herself hadn't been using every ounce of will in her body to do the same. Watching his charge battle the Slayer within had been an eye opening experience, making clear just how much she had been changed.

Xander snorted, "What happened to Angel was nothing like Buff. He was remembering slaughtering thousands of innocents. She remembers fighting to protect innocents. Dead-boy can't understand her." As ever the venom in his tone when speaking of Angel was palpable.

"Yes… well that's beside the point. None of us can understand what she is going through. That's why I think -"

"Why don't we get an answer straight from the cat's mother?"

Faith decided to use this point to welcome the newest participant of the conversation drowning out Giles' words, and looking straight at the subject of their discussion.

"Hey B. Good Night?"


	4. CHOSEN IV Déjà Vu

**_Déjà Vu_**

Buffy slowly moved out of the shadows of the doorway into the foyer of the hotel.

"Hi, Guys"

As her friends seemed shocked into silence by her sudden appearance, she made her way to the weapons storage and calmly started disarming herself while the entire room followed her movements.

Sword and sheath were unbuckled and placed in Angel's now empty weapons cabinets. Then numerous throwing knives emerged from all over her body with two long slim blades removed from sheaths at the small of her back. Finally a multitude of stakes appeared from the streamlined curves of her clothing.

"That's a mighty fine arsenal you got there lil lady… did the Buffster get much action tonight?"

A scowl crossed Buffy's features as the reason for her evening on a barstool came back to her but Faith pre-empted any reply that Buffy could have made.

"I'd be surprised if there's a vamp left in the whole city. I know it's been days since I could find one."

She grimaced ironically at the other slayer, "I thought you went to see Angel yesterday?"

"Buffy!"

Buffy looked apologetically at her sister, obviously this was not the time for jokes. It was harder now, with her hyperactive senses, to ignore the fact that Dawn was not truly her sister. The Key's energy ebbing and flowing as it pumped through every inch of her body.

With her sister before her she couldn't help but see it and remember the life she'd had without her.

She knew Dawn was hurting from the perceived rejection of her constant absence. Hopefully she believed it was due to their betrayal in Sunnydale, not her origins. Dawn not being human had always been a touchy subject.

She tuned back in to her surroundings as Faith answered Buffy, oblivious to the distraction caused by Dawn's interruption "… as bored as I am by the lack of anything slay worthy. Dammit B, did you have to scare off everything without a pulse?"

The disgruntled expression returned to Buffy's face "Well you'll be happy to know I didn't find anything to fight either."

"You didn't? Then where have you been all night, why didn't you come back? I've hardly seen you for weeks"

_Or not._

Dawns face crumpled, resisting the urge to cry. She had always complained about Buffy's over protectiveness, but the apathy that seemed to have replaced it was upsetting.

"I'm sorry Dawnie. I know I've been a bad sister. It's just been hard for me." She moved closer to pull her sister into a hug, concentrating on the past three years, trying to block the time she now remembered clearly without a sister, but when she drew her near Dawn shied away sniffing disgustedly.

"You've been drinking!" Buffy shied away from her sister's gaze, ashamed now to admit where she had spent her evening… and night. "Is this what you've been doing all this time? You've ignored your friends," a sob broke through Dawns composure, "family, left us to deal with the potentials, your future, everything while you got drunk?"

Heeding her sisters words she looked, really looked around at the people in the room in a way she hadn't for the past week and Buffy realised how much she had missed. Xander's face was gaunt from lack of food and sleep, Willows eyes were red and puffy from tears and Dawn had a pale tinge to her features which she hadn't had before.

They were all mourning people; Anya's death, Kennedy's abandonment, Spike's death. Even Faith had grieved after Robin Wood's final demise in hospital, and Buffy had magnified all their pain by her actions and her failure in her duties to her family.

Duties which had nothing to do with the slaying that Buffy had thrown herself into with abandon since their visit to the Oracles.

Her obligation to stand by her friends and comfort them in their losses. Instead that had been left to Giles who looked lost and emotionally drained by recent events. She came out of her thoughts to hear her mentor's sad voice reproaching her for her actions.

"…we all know what happened the last time you tried to drown your sorrows." Disapproval of this new revelation was clearly written over all her friend's faces.

"Yeah Buff, A revisit to primal slayer really isn't what we need now"

In spite of her realization of how much she had abandoned her friends that almost made Buffy laugh. As far as they all knew she'd hardly drunk anything since that incident. They knew nothing about her, then successful, attempts to drown her sorrow after her resurrection.

"I'm sorry guys, I haven't been here for you these past few weeks, I've just got a lot to deal with"

"You think we all don't?" Willow's resolve face was firmly in place "Buffy, you haven't dealt with anything. You've lost yourself in slaying, so much so that you've hardly been here except to sleep. And obviously as soon as you can't forget about it that way, you've switched to drinking. This isn't healthy, you have to accept what's happened."

"I know you can move through this. But you can't do it alone." Buffy smiled sadly at Giles. The time that she had needed his support was long gone.

If he had stayed when they had found out where she'd been before they raised her from the dead things might have been different. He was the only one apart from Spike that she could have opened up to then. Her friends were too guilty about their parts in her resurrection, and Dawn was too upset that she wasn't glad to be 'home'.

But he had gone, taking with him her ability to trust, to rely on him.

Looking again at the group of people standing around her she had the strangest sense of déjà vu. The setting was different, and there were people missing who could never be replaced, but the mood was the same. Forced cheer and rapport between friends who had become strangers. The tension in the air was palatable, once again they had seen her empty, they needed reassurance that she was coming back together.

_"It's because they care about you a lot. When you were gone ... it was bad when you were gone. But it'll be better now. Now that they can see you being happy. That's all they want."_ Dawns words floated back to her over the years, once again forcing her to comfort her friends.

This time they were older, they had more scars on their souls. Willow had the shadow of Tara's death and her reaction to it hanging over her, Xander felt guilty of his treatment of Anya especially in light of her sacrifice.

Once more she had to force a smile onto her face for her friends, to take away the blame they still felt for their lack of trust.

So she locked up the part of her that had been hurt, suppressed all the new memories, and let the babbling teen out. She had played a part for so many years, hiding the age-old weariness that comes with slaying under jokes and blonde-like ignorance. It was far too easy to once again slip into the role, apologise, smile, tease.

Subtly make them forget that she hadn't had time to fix herself. That this was just another shell covering up the shattered soul inside. Her consciousness of her actions faded as she retreated inwards, letting her mouth talk inanely for her, distancing her even further from the people in front of her.

The figure that had been leaning casually against the wall, hiding in the shadows caught her eye as it started to edge out.

There was no resemblance to her former confidant, unless you count the sexual prowess that emanated off both of them. But in her eyes was the same mixture of pity, sorrow… and the hope without expectations that had drawn her to the bleached vampire after her resurrection. An encouraging smile crossed Faith's features, so unlike her normally superior smirk.

Then as suddenly as it had come, it was gone, as was she. Disappearing up into the hotel.

Whatever had been coming out of her mouth must have worked; she was being drawn into a loving hug by her sister and best friend. Tears shimmered on their eyelashes. When she was able to excrete herself from the group with promises of milkshakes with her sister, mochas with Willow and training with Giles, Buffy walked wearily up the stairs in search of the enigmatic slayer.

* * *

She finally found her on the roof of the hotel. The air was cooler so high up, the breeze taking away the worst of the smell of tar and car fumes that assailed her on the streets. She was sitting on the edge, swinging her legs over the 5-storey drop. Buffy sat next to her, taking in the view. They sat there for what could have been minutes or hours, both lost in thought, unaware of time before Faith finally acknowledged her presence.

"Already finished the group kiss and make up?"

Buffy turned to look at her but Faith was still staring blankly over the city, "No."

"You should go back to them."

_Déjà Vu_

As if in a different timeline Buffy dazedly replied, "I don't want to."

"No doubt they'll still be there when you decide you do." Faith gracefully rose to leave.

"Faith…"

"You don't have to say anything."

"I was going to leave." Faith stopped as she was about to climb back in the window of the hotel. "There would have been hundreds… thousands. They wouldn't need me." It wasn't the whole truth; that she'd expected to leave in a much more permanent way than was implied. But it was enough. For now.

Faith faced her for the first time, "You'll always be needed B"

Buffy sighed, "I know. And I'll always be there… for eternity." she knew on a conscious level that it was pointless to grieve the peace she had lost. She could remember being drawn from it countless times as she was reborn, but the pain of being ripped forcefully out still stung like an open wound.

_"Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp. That look of peace… Every Slayer has a death wish."_

Even then, Spike had understood her so much better than those she spent her time with. He lived with her in the night. Something inside came alive when she was enshrouded in darkness. He had been the only one to understand the monster within. The effect of the hunt, the kill.

She could feel Faith's worried gaze on her back. Somehow, after taking the death wish to the extreme of turning against her calling, Faith had found something to live for in redemption. Friends, family, they were never enough to give a slayer the will to live, but the need to atone, to earn forgiveness for her sins was keeping Faith alive, by forcing herself to survive the next battle, to save more innocents. Until she had earned her gift.

"You don't have to go."

"You came up here to be alone."

Buffy smiled and shook her head, but formed the words that were still appropriate.

"That's okay. I can be alone with you here."

Unsure whether this was a good or bad reflection on their relationship, Faith awkwardly lowered herself back onto her spot on the roof's edge. Comforted somewhat by the weary smile Buffy sent her way, she returned to her thoughts, gazing over the city.

The last Slayer and the Chosen One sat together, watching as the rising sun burst over the horizon, heralding a new day. Calmed by the presence of a kindred spirit, tears of regret for her losses started to silently streak down Buffy's face.


	5. CHOSEN V A House of Cards

**_A House of Cards_**

_**The flames were roaring all around her, the crackling of burning timber and crashes of burnt beams collapsing under the weight they had been designed to support drowning out the noises of the fight. The demon was a part of the flames and of the night, especially powerful in a blaze that added heat to its fire._

_The blades in her hands no match for the creatures reach, cursing the summoner who had bought her adversary into this dimension, she ducked and weaved around the demon's clumsy blows, finally managing to sink her blades into its gritty flesh. Even as its flames were extinguished and the demon defeated, the knives melted into pools of metal. Destroyed by the inferno._

_She tried to catch her breath in the hot, oxygen starved air, the smoke stinging her wounds as she swayed, still reeling from the battle. There was no chance of escape**_

Buffy woke up choking in attempts to breathe, and looked in confusion at her surroundings. Where were the majestic pillars? The tiled floors? More importantly, where were the fires? For a moment the room seemed completely alien, then her mind reorganised, sending her dreams… memories of ancient Greece back into her subconscious.

Thoughts and feelings that were both new and so old she couldn't trace their origins settled down. Her breakdown the night before, or technically earlier this morning, had released the floodgates of memories. By no longer trying to repress the thoughts of her deaths she had welcomed her previous lives into her subconscious.

The urge to fight that had receded in her misery now returned with a vengeance. She went down to Angel's flat in the basement and closed her eyes in the centre of his training mats. She started with a simple Tai Chi routine, or simple for a slayer anyway; the achingly slow moves often impossible to those without enhanced flexibility and strength.

But the low burn in her muscles wasn't enough to satisfy the desire to push herself, adrenaline was still flowing through her system. She sped up into more vicious kicks, jumps and punches.

Fighting imaginary adversaries. Speeding up the moves until she was just a blur in the midst of flailing limbs. The minutes, hours melted away as she fought her demons. Literally battling the things that had caused each of her deaths.

* * *

That was how Faith found her, engrossed in her deadly dance. Some of the moves she was pulling off not only impossible for a human to contemplate attempting, but daunting for a slayer.

The presence of the other slayer niggled on the edge of Buffy's senses, which in her current state were on full alert. It snapped her out of her imaginary battle and her moves stilled from frenzied fighting into complete stillness in an impossibly short period of time. She settled into a stance that Faith remembered well, it was both a challenge and an invitation.

Buffy stood in the classic ready position that she had assumed every time the two slayers had sparred… or fought… in a flash she saw Buffy clad in leather a mocking smirk on her face and empty eyes taunting her. Faith shuddered and came back to the present.

There was no threat in this Buffy's face, she looked completely calm standing in the centre of the room with her eyes closed. As if completely unaware that there was anyone else in the room. But Faith wasn't going to fall for that.

She threw the first punch, as Buffy had wanted her to. Not out of any desire to place blame for their fight on the younger slayer, she wanted to give the other girl the chance to refuse. To walk away from a fight they both knew Faith couldn't win.

But Faith could never resist a challenge, especially when it came to sparring with Buffy, something they hadn't done in the years after she'd betrayed the blonde. It had seemed to be so entwined with the short time when they were such good friends; when they'd done everything together. In the past four years they'd only fought in anger.

A smile of relief crossed Buffys face as Faiths first hit landed on her jaw, glad to have a real fight to ease the building tension she'd been feeling without anything to slay. And then they were dancing around each other, fighting like they had planned how to miss each other by millimetres with each attack, their offensive and defensive moves balancing one another out.

As Faith kicked at Buffy's head with a roundhouse, she ducked and swept her leg to knock down her partner, who jumped and flipped out of Buffy's path. Their years of fighting allowed them to anticipate each others next move, slayer-quick reflexes forcing their bodies into well trained postures.

Occasionally one would slip through the other's defences, landing powerful blows that would send the other flying back. They got lost in the fight. In the strikes and parries, the ache of their sore muscles and forming bruises adding to the satisfaction of calming the instinct that told them to slay.

* * *

Bloodied and sweating they finally finished their fight. Buffy's bruises were already healing, the split on her lip from Faith's final blow visibly closing and knitting together. Faith on the other hand without the extra fast healing that Buffy had recently acquired, was still feeling the soreness of some of Buffy's throws and had a streak of blood trickling down her face from a cut on her forehead. She stood breathing heavily in the centre of the room, fully exhausted by the sparring session as Buffy started stretching out tired muscles.

"Wow Buff, you've really got that super-slayerness working for you. I don't think I even tired you out."

Buffy moved through the apartment to grab a bottle of water, "Yeah" she thought back to everything that had come with her newly acquired powers. The painful memories of her past, the long extended future that she could no longer escape… it was hard for Buffy to see a good side.

Disappointed by Buffy's sullen response, Faith turned away, starting to warm down herself. It wasn't as if she could expect their past to be forgotten, but after the night of comfortable silence on the roof, she had hoped they could try to work through things.

"You've definitely proved you don't need help slaying. Angel's been here four years and you emptied the city in a week."

Buffy caught the hint in that sentence and looked sharply at the girl. In her tone she could hear Faiths acceptance, reluctant as it may be, that Buffy no longer needed her help.

_What if she isn't coming?_

She realised that no-one had asked. She had just assumed Faith would be coming with them to the Hellmouth. For some reason the thought of Faith not being there seemed terrible.

In a moment of awareness, she saw how fragile their relationship still was; a house of cards ready to topple in the slightest breeze.

"I still need all the help I can get."

Faith frowned at the inflections in Buffy's voice. This wasn't about slaying… Faith forced herself to keep the hope in her face hidden from Buffy. She had harmed the Scoobies too much to expect her recent help to absolve her of all sins.

"Are you coming?"

Neither of them needed to clarify what Buffy meant. The hopeful tone was all the convincing Faith needed. She nodded, a subtle gesture which meant just as much to one slayer as it did the other, before making her way to the exit.

"You wanna join my slayers road trip?"

Faith turned, finally making eye contact with Buffy in her shock. The chosen one had made it clear that she wanted to take a slaying trip across the country alone, while the others flew to sort out their lives.

It was the only thing Buffy had even discussed with her friends the previous week; she would travel across the country cleaning out the cities of all 'sub terrestrials' along the way. She looked searchingly into Buffy's green eyes.

"Sure" She tried to sound nonchalant, but the hope came out in her tone... the longing in her eyes for a place to belong "If you want me there."

Buffy had insisted on her solo trip to give her more time to deal with her feelings towards her friends. She knew that she also needed the time to learn to use her enhanced powers alone before she had others tagging along as well.

When she had told them about the trip she had just wanted to get away from them, to continue to lose herself in the fight after the dwindling demon population of LA was destroyed. Her weeks slaying had been in a fighting frenzy where she had completely given into her more demonic side, allowing it to wipe her consciousness of everything but the kill.

She had to learn to control the beast inside her. Trying again to convince her friends of the validity of her plan had been difficult.

_** "Are you sure you have to do this."_

"Think about how many lives I'd save doing vamp extermination from coast to coast, you know its the best plan"

Her friends were still worried for her sanity. She had only just started talking to them properly at all.

"I get it Buff, but why can't someone come with?"

"Xand, you have to pick out a house and do it up, you're gonna have to go up there in the next few days to start house hunting."

Willow smiled sadly at her friend, she knew there was no way to move Buffy on an issue that she was this insistent on. Even 'resolve face' didn't work well against Buffy's stubbornness. Xander reluctantly saw this point but still mulled over the plan sulkily.

"Why can't I come?" she barely even saw her sisters face, the glow around her distracting from her sisters visage.

"It's not safe Dawn. Besides, you need to start summer school if you want to catch up in time."

"You need someone to watch your back Buff. Tweedinator, you should go with her, that's your job right?"

Buffy's expression momentarily mirrored her horror at the idea that Giles would come with her. He was even more of a liability than the others, having been out of the game for a while and not exactly getting younger in his retirement. Giles saw the look that had flashed across his slayers face and cursed himself for the destruction of their close relationship.

It seemed his attempt on Spikes unlife had destroyed their tenuous hold on friendship. It might take years to rebuild, but for the present, he would give her what she seemed to need.

"Don't call me that" Giles absentmindedly muttered as he sought for an appropriate reason to once again leave his slayer alone "I will have to sort out acquiring a library, but I think that Buffy is well able to do this alone"

Buffy smiled gratefully at the older man. He as ever, understood far better than her friends when she needed to be forced and when to let things go. Perhaps it was because his training helped him understand the slayer side of her better. **

Buffy once again thanked her stars that the others still listened to Giles, allowing her to shorten what could have been an endless discussion. The realisation that Faith hadn't been sure of her invitation to come with them, or thinking back, that they had even thought about Faith's involvement was a wake up call to her fellow slayer's insecurities.

She hadn't been thinking enough about the near future to wonder if her friends had even asked Faith along. Buffy had just assumed the other slayer would be there. And after last night she knew she needed the other slayer more than ever.

Needed someone that understood what if felt like to have a thing within you desperate to kill.

Needed someone who stood a chance in bringing her down if that thing ever truly came out to play.

She had to reassure Faith that she was wanted and was in no way a liability. Buffy flashed a winning smile.

_Should I take her with me?_

"Wouldn't want it any other way."


	6. CHOSEN VI Coffee Memories

**_Coffee Memories_**

There was something wrong with her mocha. Or her… depending on how you looked at it. Willow certainly wasn't having a problem with hers as she rambled on about the specific difficulties she had encountered while accessing the Council's accounts.

Luckily the topic was the only one which Buffy wouldn't be reprimanded too badly if it was found she wasn't listening. It wasn't as if she'd ever paid much attention, or attempted to understand, how Willows hacking worked.

In the mean time, she sipped her mocha, identical to hundreds consumed in similar shops over the past few years, and contemplated the problems with her drink.

_**The smell of roasting coffee beans was all around the stagnant heat of the hut keeping the rich aroma inside. Suddenly her grandfather's slow stirring halted and he made a final assessment of the beans over the fire before deeming them finished and pouring the beautifully baked beans out of the pan. She jumped forward and started bagging the still hot beans, occasionally sneaking one into her mouth when her elder was concentrating on the new batch of coffee, blowing on the smouldering embers of the fire beneath the pan to heat up the coals.**_

"Buffy!"

From the tone of her voice, it was obvious that Willow had been trying to get her attention for a while… hopefully she wasn't in too much trouble.

"Sorry Will. I kinda zoned out into a memory again."

"What triggered this one? Was it me talking about how to bypass…" Buffy quickly butted in before Willow could once again become engrossed in her binary world.

"It was the coffee." to prove the point Buffy took a sip of the drink in question. It was even worse with the remembered flavour of freshly roasted beans still on her tongue.

_She shuddered at the bland taste_

"I can't drink any more of this crap."

Willow looked at Buffy in confusion. This had been her choice of café, the one she had loved when she was at Hemery. They had travelled half way across L.A. just to taste the 'wonderful' coffee.

She looked down apprehensively at the now half-full cup in her hand that she had been happily drinking from. She raised the mug to her lips and once again tasted the liquid. A contented smile crossed her face and sighed as she savoured the taste.

Buffy frowned at her own steaming mug. "Sorry Will, I guess in some lives I thought a good cup of coffee was important. This is just so… dull"

"You zone out over a not so great cup of coffee… we really need to stop these things."

"I know. But they were helpful when we went over the demon books we're taking to Cleveland. Like instant watcher knowledge; see a picture, get trancy images of how to kill it."

"How are your meditation techniques going?"

"Okay I guess. I just can't seem to stop these memories. I just wish some of them weren't so pointless." Buffy scowled at the rejected mug in front of her.

"What was this one about?"

"A coffee plantation I lived on as a child. We harvested the beans and roasted them. I can still smell them cooking over the open fire."

"Err… Buffy… That might just be the smell of the café."

Buffy shook her head, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the comparison. "Believe me when I say it isn't." Willow raised her eyebrows but knew better than to comment.

"But you're sure this won't affect your slaying?"

Buffy shrugged, "Can't really tell without anything to slay… but I don't think so."

Willow nodded warily at Buffy's blunt answer and took in yet another subject that their friendship was no longer close enough to cover.

She quickly changed the subject, and soon they were talking enthusiastically about the house Xander had found in Cleveland. Planning the renovations needed on a building that was to house two slayers.

Each trying to enjoy the pretence that they were still best friends, still knew each other's lives. That they even lived in the same world anymore.

* * *

Buffy grumpily studied the bus maps and timetables they had acquired from the library. Just because she'd been in a couple of accidents, years ago, no-one would even go near a car with her in the driver's seat. Faith, who had been there at the time to hear the tales first hand, wasn't going to take the risk. Buffy scowled up at her sister slayer, aimlessly knocking her feet against the counter she was perched on.

"Are you gonna help? It's you that wanted to go by bus…"

Faith threw down the magazine she had been skimming through and slumped into a chair next to Buffy's and started blindly leafing through the timetables.

"Yeah… but I was thinking more like just go where we wanted… y'no; be impulsive." Faith raised her eyebrows suggestively at Buffy in the easygoing flirty manner that the two of them hadn't been comfortable enough to use for years. Buffy grinned at the reaction, enjoying the growing ease in their relationship while Faith was still walking on eggshells around all the others she had hurt.

"Faith we have to have some kind of plan" Buffy held up a hand when Faith started to disagree, "plus Willow wouldn't leave me alone until I said I'd make one." Faith laughed and chucked her timetable back onto the mess on the table.

Buffy looked in askance at the magazine which had flown through her organised planning. Her eyes suddenly lit up as she focused on the page it had fallen open at. Faith wouldn't be able to resist. An evil smile spread over her face.

"Impulsive would be a lot easier if we didn't have to stick to bus timetables…"

"No way Buff… you'll never get me in a four wheeled vehicle with you again"

Buffy cocked her eyebrow and grinned at her friend, knowing that she was about to cave. "Who said anything about four wheels?" she glanced down at the open page.

Faith followed Buffy's gaze to the motorcycle advert in her magazine. For the first time since being dragged along to plan their trip she showed some excitement, eyes shining like a small child with a new toy. She turned hopefully to Buffy not believing what she thought she was implying.

"I drive though. I don't trust you to stay within the speed limit, and regardless of the fact Will wiped your record, I don't think we want you near any cops."

Faith's expression, that had drooped slightly when she was told she wouldn't be driving, went blank; fixed into a neutrally indifferent expression at the reminder of her times behind bars. Buffy looked up warily at her friend, not sure if they were close enough for her to comfort her… If Faith would let her in. Buffy forced Faith to look her in the eye.

"You know that doesn't matter anymore" Faith nodded but Buffy wasn't sure that she'd accepted their forgiveness. Or had even believed them when they had given it. "Hey I've had help from two bloodsucking murderers in my time as a slayer, you would have to do a lot more to scare me off."

Not exactly satisfied but at least reassured by Buffy's comments, Faith sighed, and then looked up at the other slayer, eyes wide and begging.

"You still don't get to drive"

Faith pouted annoyed but unsurprised that she couldn't make Buffy give in.  
"How do I know you're any safer on a bike?"

Hearing the muttered complaint Buffy paused in the doorway, pointedly glaring at the abandoned timetables, making Faiths options clear.

Faith jumped to her feet, "All right, I'm coming." She eagerly followed Buffy out of the Hotel, away from the damn timetables, as they went to shop for their wheels.


	7. CHOSEN VII That's a lot of Shake

**_That's a lot of Shake_**

A grouchy waitress approached the table, wearily getting out her pad "Y'all ready to order?"

The blonde turned to the other girl at the table.

"Are you sure you need sprinkles as well?"

"Buffy, please, I'm leaving today…" Dawn wined, turning on the pout and big begging eyes… it was only a matter of time before the guilt trip started…

"Fine. She'll have a large chocolate milkshake with caramel sauce, Oreos and chocolate sprinkles, and I'd like a glass of iced water, please." she flashed a bright smile at the waitress who couldn't help returning it before she left to fill their order.

"You sure we've got everything you need?" Buffy looked at the piles of bags that surrounded their table.

Dawn glanced thoughtfully around her totalling up her purchases then looked dubiously at her sister. Buffy answered her own rhetorical question before Dawn could beg for more clothes, shoes and hundreds of other miscellaneous things that she just had to have right now.

"No Dawn, you've got enough." Buffy kicked one of the bags away to give herself some leg room "Even with slayer strength, I can't carry much more"

"I do have a whole wardrobe to replace you know." A pained look crossed her sisters' face "All those beautiful clothes… shoes… destroyed."

"They do have shops in Ohio."

"But…"

"Dawn" the warning in Buffy's tone quieted her sister. The waitress returned with their order placing a huge glass in front of Dawn.

"Mmmm… Chocolate. Milkshake good" Dawn looked up grinning over her monstrous drink.

Buffy scowled at her sister who was happily slurping her drink.

"I don't get how you can eat that stuff."

"Says a slayer." Dawn replied sarcastically "I swear Faith eats more than a dozen sumos. And the fridge always mysteriously empties after your midnight 'snacks'."

"Slayer metabolism definitely has a lot to answer for. But I have no idea how you stay slim with the amount you eat. At least I have an excuse."

"I'm still growing. I need my vitamins"

Buffy raised her eyebrow at the tall glass of chocolate flavoured processed milk in front of her sister.

"Vitamins is one thing, of which there are none in that glass by the way, and eating enough snacks to stuff Xander is another."

"Come on Buffy, exaggeration is one thing… but more than Xander. We both know that's impossible."

"You've never seen Faith full flow have you? We had to order double at research parties after she first…" the joking sentence trailed off as she continued that train of thought to the memory of how Faith's first visit to Sunnydale had ended.

As close as she and Faith had gotten since her arrival in Sunnydale, there was still their past, niggling at the back of every thought. Buffy looked up at her sister's worried gaze then back down at her now half empty drink. "That thing's still the nuclear bomb of diet destroyers." Dawn looked at her drink and made a face.

"It is making me kinda queasy."

"The sprinkles." It was half way between a statement and a question.

"Yeah." Dawn glared at the sprinkles on the top of her milkshake, Buffy nodded sagely. "How did you know they'd be too much?"

"The wisdom that comes with being the older sister. Haven't you learnt yet? Big sisters are always right."

Dawn smirked "But you're such an iddy bitty thing."

Silence reigned as Buffy seethed from that comment and Dawn smugly finished off her milkshake. She glanced at her watch then looked at her sister panic building in her eyes. "We're late" Dawn spluttered on the remnants of her drink; eyes wide at the thought of Willow's reaction to their absence.

* * *

They arrived back at the hotel twenty minutes later than planned to find the whole place in uproar, Willow rushing frantically around. There was a pile of luggage strewn over the floor. Giles was making his way downstairs with a large box grasped to his chest.

"We're back"

Willow approached with a determined look on her face, but luckily for the Summers girls the shock of Dawn's melodic greeting made Giles stumble and lose his grip on the box of ancient books, which were now strewn over the floor. Dawn gulped, she now had two of the Scoobies annoyed at her.

"Do you have any idea how old these are? You could try warning me before you shout out." Dawn dashed up the stairs hoping to avoid any repercussions as Giles started collecting up the tombs, muttering under his breath, "16th century translation of the original Sumerian... ruined" He collected up the scattered pages of a volume whose spine had broken in the fall, angrily attempting to sort the pages into some kind of order inside their jacket.

Buffy bent to pick up some of the fallen books, absentmindedly scanned the titles as she helped Giles pack them back into their box.

"Where did you get these anyway? I thought we'd already sent the books ahead."

"Angel showed me this quaint little book shop with a back room just off… you didn't really want to know did you?"

Buffy smiled amiably, "Just thinking out loud. Bizarre to have a back room filled with demon texts not porn though. " She picked up another volume, "Oohh I remember researching this one!" she started flipping through the pages, skimming over the content, "Hmph." she frowned, "You know this translation isn't that…" she felt eyes on her back, and turned to see Giles staring at her in disbelief.

"You helped to research one of the Egyptian's premier texts on vampires?" He took off his glasses and started searching for a handkerchief. "It is quite outdated now; I just got it for the historical value really but…"

He paused as both he and Buffy realised there was a third party in their conversation staring angrily at the pair of them. They simultaneously turned to see Willow's angry glare. She was standing, arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently, "Are you two quite done? 'Cause I'd quite like to catch our plane."

They murmured their apologies and hurriedly gathered together the rest of the books. Just as they were finishing packing up the box, Dawn came downstairs with a large suitcase. She opened it on the floor and started stuffing in her purchases. Buffy looked on with amusement as the bag was filled haphazardly and Dawn hopelessly attempted to close the straps of the over packed bag.

"It does help if you fold your clothes"

A horn sounded outside "The cabs are here." Willow shouted over her shoulder as she started to carry their luggage down the steps, "We need to get going."

Dawn was sitting on the suitcase trying to squash the clothes to close the zip. "You know for a champion of the people, you're not very charitable about giving out your super-powered help." She scowled up at her sister who was for once enjoying being taller than her sibling.

Buffy sighed and kneeled down to force the case shut as her sister zipped it up. She took the bag out to the cab, and then joined in as everyone was hurried around by Willow who was organizing getting everything getting into the cabs. The redhead glanced at the clock on the wall as they bade farewell, her anxious manner silently speeding it along.

Dawn gave her sister a quick hug before being hurried with Giles into a cab, saying quick goodbyes to the slayer. Willow grabbed her purse and jumped into the other cab, shouting out the lowered window as the cab pulled away from the pavement "We'll see you in a few weeks."

Buffy stood alone in the lobby as the cabs drove away and the air settled from the rush. Finally relaxing as she was able to let go of the persona she affected for her friends.

"You can come out now"

Faith came out of the shadows of the stairwell "You know me. Never one for the sappy goodbyes." Faith came down to stand next to Buffy and slung a small hold all over her shoulder. She cocked her eyebrow at the slayer. "Ready to ride?"


	8. CHOSEN VIII The Eternal Dance

**_The Eternal Dance_**

The beat of the song thrummed through her body, her graceful movements perfectly matching the rhythm of the music. Flowing gestures that unconsciously demonstrated her supple strength and balance to the patrons of the club.

She let herself get lost in the music.

Tuning out her surroundings until there was only the music and movements. Music, movements and memories.

Faith turned from the bar, picking up two cokes and stopped short as she saw the other Slayer on the dance floor.

Though there were other talented dancers in the club, there was something compelling in her dance that had drawn the gaze of a large majority of the patrons. Despite the pace and upbeat tone of the song, and the lack of any indication of grief on the blonde's face, a deep seeded sorrow emanated from the slayer in a way that struck the audience on a primal level.

As Buffy had turned her consciousness in on itself, her motions had become linked to the start of her memories. She had lost herself in the dance allowing her mind to empty of the stress of the now. And, as ever, her thoughts were drawn back to the past.

Back to the beginning

Her gestures became subtly more pronounced. Following the rhythm of the music but somehow more meaningful than the dancers in the crowd around her. Her dance taking the form of a story, being told in a way that hadn't been used since civilization overran the globe.

Before spoken language had even been contemplated, the creatures that would become humans communicated through movement, posture, using the whole body to silently speak.

These same motions were later used by druids and shamans to cement their positions of power, and are still used in our body language when we wish to convey a point, stuck in the depths of our memory and only recognised on a subliminal level. Deeply ingrained into the human subconscious as a thing of power and otherworldliness.

The observers couldn't interpret the story of the dance through her steps, or even tell that there was something to read.

But deep in their minds. In a part of their memories that was inherited from far in the past, they understood the movements that had been used and developed upon since a time before speech. Felt the power of something used throughout time to call upon spirits and gods.

They saw the steps retelling the Calling of Slayers as the champion of all people and without understanding why the dancing of the beautiful girl should do such a thing, were almost bought to tears by the selflessness of Earth's Champions. The sorrow of the moment when a girl is Chosen, and all choices are taken away.

Faith was pulled out of her entranced state, completely still as she gazed upon her fellow slayer by the movement of another into her line of sight. She felt her hackles rise as the tall tan youth moved closer to Buffy, making an attempt to mirror her movements as he danced closer to her.

His had none of the grace and flair of Buffy's and his dance seemed like a meagre copy; the wisp of a shadow at high noon that isn't even comparable to the thing it imitates.

Faith felt a surge of anger flood over her at the audacity of this boy; that he thought he could not only dance with Buffy, but match her dance of blood and sorrow. With dark eyes staring fixedly at the kid, she felt a rumble rise in her throat and fought against the urge to release her tension by burying one of her itching fists in the boy's chest.

It might have been better for all concerned if she had.

Buffy was shocked out of her thoughts of the past by her senses informing her of the person moving closer towards her. With a barely noticeable change in her movements, the story of movements faded away; breaking its hypnotic hold on those watching her.

She pulled away form the youth and the anger that flashed over her face managed to convey her disapproval of his interruption. The slayers power had ebbed and flowed since Sunnydale's last battle, her huge increase in strength meaning it was no longer under the tight control she had kept up constantly before that fateful day.

In her surprised outrage at being disturbed, the slayers power rose up; escaping her self imposed restraints and sending a wave of mystical strength out like a beacon all around her.

The two slayers locked eyes through the crowd, exchanging a silent message through the din. Both knowing what Buffy's loss of control would mean.

* * *

They simultaneously turned and legged it towards the door before the outburst of mystical energy drew less human friendly creatures to the party. Sure enough, when they hit the street outside they found a group of vampires that must have been lurking nearby heading straight for them down the side street that lead to the club.

Unfortunately for the night time creatures, the Chosen One was still angered by the interruption of her dance, the flow of energies dancing under her skin. She flew at them with an abandon that surprised even her partner.

The power radiating off her seemed to almost crackle, electrifying the air around her as she danced through the vampires that seemed to be constantly joining the fight, more often than not choosing to merely block and tackle than go in for the kill as she enjoyed the motions of the battle, giving into the feral side of her that so lusted after the fight.

It was only when she noticed that Faith was becoming slightly overwhelmed by the number of vampires that had been drawn to the pair that dust started to appear in all directions around her. Leaving a few for Faith to vent her own frustration on, Buffy leant back against a wall, looking idly around as she waited for her friend to release her tension.

When another three vampires had become dust on the wind, Faith sauntered up to the blonde with a slightly angered expression on her face.

"What was that?"

Finally coming down from the high that her dance and then the fight that had followed it had given her; Buffy started to look shaken by the events of the evening.

"I just… I was angry at the kid… he interrupted the Dance." without even meaning to she capitalised the word, conveying the significance of what she had been doing.

_**She watched the hunters return and wanted to run out with the rest. Run down to them and exclaim at what they had caught. But she couldn't. Not anymore._

Just like the old men sitting beside her couldn't go. Not even to meet their sons. They had the power; the respect of the village, but that separated them from their people as much as the thing they put inside her had.

They were the leaders, and had to act like it. More than that, their people couldn't enjoy themselves with the shaman there, unable to forget the power these men wielded.

At least she could hear, thanks to the gifts these men had thrust upon her.

A youngster asked for the tale of the hunt. Something the whole village had known would happen as soon as the hunters got back, and the rest of the crowd added their voices until they agreed.

They sat in a loose circle around the fire and let the hunters weave their story. Telling a silent tale as they Danced around the blaze. Silent because this was about stealth, bravery and the intimate bond between predator and prey.

Things so complex and abstract, how could they be conveyed using a medium as limited as speech.

Someone started to beat a drum and the sound cut across the shuffling of feat like the beating of a terrified heart, loud and excited, adding to the tension.

And she wanted to go down and sit with the rest but she couldn't.

Couldn't gasp as the cat came to try and claim the kill.

Couldn't cheer as the hunters made their offering to the great beast and took their prize.

Because when the sun, which was already hanging low in the sky, when it finally set she would go out on her own hunt. And when she returned with the dawn there would be no crowds. No requests for the story of her hunt.

Because all that the people wanted to know was they were safe. Not that safety was bought with blood, pain and an innocence that was lost the day they made her. **

The Dance had never been hers. Hers was a tale passed on only in whispers, one trapped in ancient rites. She had never danced her story, but she knew the steps and… and the boy had dared interrupt it. A wave of anger flowed through her again at the thought.

"Yeah I know, then you let go of a shit load of energy. What are we gonna do if that happens every time someone comes too close B? We can't always be ready to fight every vamp in the surrounding ten blocks!" Faith's anger was being fed by fear that the vampires had made her feel in the moment that she was surrounded, by the adrenaline flowing through her veins.

Her relief at Buffy's help unable to outweigh the annoyance she felt in the blonde's enjoyment of the battle while she had almost become a victim to her natural prey.

Buffy's face darkened "Why do you think I wanted to travel slowly? I need to sort this before I can safely be around the others." She was pacing up and down, her angry words being marked by rises in her power as her emotions flared.

Realizing that she was doing the very thing that she was meaning to put an end to, she calmed herself; centring her power using one of the various forms of meditation she had learnt throughout her lives.

"What does it matter anyway? You'll wipe out everything on the Hellmouth in a couple of weeks." Faith grumbled, annoyed now that the urgency of conflict had passed that once again she hadn't been a necessary element of the fight. Buffy had the ability to easily defeat all the vampires in the cities they had visited solo, merely leaving her with the remnants to play with.

Faith was beginning to wonder why she'd even come on this trip. She ignored Buffy's response, thinking of the first demonstration she'd had of the power that Buffy really possessed, and the blonde's struggle to control it.

_**It wasn't even on the map, a ramshackle road of dust in the desert that Faith would have ignored if Buffy hadn't turned down it. She shouted at the slayer through the dust that was flying at them off the undisturbed track._

"Where are we going?"

"Trust me." Was all Buffy would reply as the road behind them was lost from view, hidden amongst the endless nothing.

Faith didn't feel them until they had pulled up outside the ramshackle house that somehow still stood in its desolate surroundings. The windows all boarded up with slats almost as weather beaten as the house itself. It wasn't until you looked closely that you would notice that the boards on the house left no room for light to get through, that though the door looked like it could fall apart in any moment, the hinges were well worn and oiled.

A perfect place to hide.

Buffy switched off the ignition and climbed off the bike, smiling as her senses told her how many vampires there were, sleeping away the dwindling daylight in the house. She started towards the door when she was halted by a hand on her arm.

"Shouldn't we scout it out first, looks like a big nest" Faith pointed behind the buildings to a row of dusty automobiles with their windows blacked out.

Buffy smiled, remembering a time when she had been constantly trying to get Faith to do anything other than jump into trouble, now she was the one holding Buffy back "I promise we can handle them, now come on! I'm dying for a good fight" she tried to move away but Faith still hung on to her arm.

"Buffy, we don't know how many are in there"

The slayer's anger started to rise as her proximity to the vampires got to her. Buffy couldn't control the urge to just go and slay when she could feel them so close by. She tried to breathe deeply, using her meditative techniques to calm the urge to slay, stop herself lashing out at Faith.

"There's about 20, most of them asleep. Honest, we can take them. Half of them will probably die without a fight." The last part was said almost grumpily as if Buffy wasn't sure that the pro's outweighed the cons of not waking the sleeping vamps. "Besides, if you don't come in after me, I might die!" she pulled away from Faith and walked through the door.

"She just had to remember that" Faith grumbled, before following the blonde through the darkened entrance.

She opened the first few doors, but only found a few vampires, sleeping as Buffy had said that she quickly and quietly disposed of. The next door turned out to be for the main living area, where more than a dozen vampires were lying satisfied on the floor alongside a few drained bodies. The door unfortunately squeaked loud enough to wake a drowsy vamp. Buffy, in the centre of the room, froze as his eyes fluttered open.

He was staked before he had a chance to scream but his sudden disappearance caused a chain reaction in the movement of the bodies on the floor that resulted in a rickety table tottering on two legs, hanging for a moment on the edge of falling and righting, before crashing to the ground, carrying a multitude of empty bottles and cans with it.

There was a moment's silence when the world seemed to hold its breath in anticipation, and then all hell broke loose. The amazing thing wasn't that all the vampires woke up; it was that they all went straight for Buffy.

In no time she was in the middle of a mob fighting for all her worth, Faith would occasionally hear the sound of one of her adversaries turning to dust as the blonde danced around her foes. Faith threw herself into the fight, taking on a pair who had been attempting to blindside Buffy from behind.

When the dust settled, Faith turned to Buffy, panting in exertion from the fight they'd just had, to see a strange light in her eyes. It was something she remembered well from before she had learnt a degree of control over her powers.

The part of you that relished the sound of ribs cracking as a stake broke through to the heart. That enjoyed the pain you caused in a fight; the pain you received. The demon inside every slayer. She grabbed onto Buffy forcing her to face her.

"B, get a grip on yourself"

Buffy looked blindly at her friend in front of her, then at the hands on her arms and growled, wrenching herself out of Faith's grip. She reached for a stake.

"Buffy, it's done. We got them all"

Faith tried again to restrain the slayer, who snarled at the unexpected contact and shook her off, throwing her to the floor. Buffy stood over her friend with her stake raised, then in a quick movement, rammed the wood into the body of the nest's meal on the floor, before walking out of the house without a backwards glance.

Left behind, Faith watched in growing horror as the body didn't dissolve but crumpled, deflated, then eventually turned to dust. She fled the building, sickened by the destruction of a corpse not entirely controlled by its demon.

Faith warily approached Buffy where she paced outside the house, carefully following her constrained movements. The slayer a cadged animal trying to break free, to release some of the adrenaline left over from the fight.

"What's up, B?"

"I can't control it, there's too much. I have to stop it, I can't let it out."

Buffy was practically growling. Faith reached for Buffy, trying to stop her frustrated pacing, she flinched away from her touch, but managed to stop the hand that instinctively moved to hit her assailant. Faith looked at her hand like it had been burnt and moved away from the blonde, sitting dejectedly on the porch steps.

When she had calmed down, Buffy sat by Faith, trying to respect her friends discomfort by keeping her distance.

"I'm sorry Fai, I didn't…"

"I know." Faith sighed "I just thought we were past you thinking of me as a threat"

Faith stood up and moved to fiddle with the luggage on the bike, obviously not in the mood to continue the conversation. Finally managing to calm herself; Buffy eventually stood and silently mounted the bike. Not knowing how to repair the rift in their relationship that one action had caused.**

Since then they had traveled halfway across the country. And they had slowly regained their trust in each other as well as Buffy gaining some control over the power inside her. Buffy was trying, trying to calm the beast, to rebuild trust that had once come so easily to them both.

"And since it's the Hellmouth, hopefully demons and vamps'll keep coming back to try for an apocalypse or two." Buffy linked her arm through her sister slayers; encouraged by the anger fading from the brunette's face, and started pulling them along the street "Come on, I promise I'll let you dust the next nest we find. Slayer's Honor" she held up her free hand in a three fingered imitation of a scout's salute and looked winningly at her friend.

Buoyed by Buffy's suddenly cheerful mood and unable, as usual, to refuse the blonde, Faith grinned back and looked thoughtfully down at her as they paused at the intersection of two main roads, waiting for Buffy to find their prey with her extended senses.

Buffy may not need Faith's help in the fights, but at least she seemed to enjoy her company and sought her out even as she avoided the people that were meant to be her friends, trusting her enough to occasionally let her see underneath the façade that she had created to hide the fragile person inside.


	9. CHOSEN IX The Blade's Edge

_**The Blade's Edge **_

Walking through the dimly lit streets, both slayers were on high alert for anything supernatural. The sound that did reach Buffy's ears was one that was unexpected, the clash of swords isn't something you expect to hear coming out of a grimy alleyway.

_**An ancient battlefield, the heat rising from the dusty ground as swords crashed on shields all around her, the sand dyed red with the blood that had flowed over it in the past decade, never able to forget the battle that raged on it or given enough respite for the fresh rain to wash it clean. The very land seemed to bleed in sympathy as its people were slaughtered upon it.**_

The sound of steel impacting on steel bought back a flood of memories. Buffy tried to force the thoughts down; push them back in to the past where they belonged.

_**A pair of warriors faced each other; hidden in the shadows they didn't notice their silent observer as the blades crashed together dancing around one another with the skill of masters. The stronger of the two opponents beat back his rival with a broadsword that easily forced back the light rapier that the slim man wielded. Raising his sturdy blade in triumph; he failed to block the light blade's quick sweep upwards.**_

As Buffy paused, frozen in a condition that Faith had learnt to recognise as her reaction to the sudden rushes of memory that were a symptom of her new state, the gap in the buildings in front of them erupted in a flash of bright lights.

_**She stood in the centre of a ring of warrior vampires; her muscles aching from the battle that still raged around her. The pair of blades she had taken spinning in her hands; clashing against the identical ones in the hands of her foes as she caught them before they could cut into her flesh._

She beheaded another vampire with a swipe of her sword, but neglected to stop the blade that cut deep into her side. The next swipe cut through the tired muscle in her thigh and she sank to the ground even as her life was sucked out of her through a multitude of bites.**

The thunder seeming to strike up out of the alleyway into the sky, licking across the building until it could find a place in which to ground itself.

Buffy grabbed onto Faith as she recovered from the influx of sensation that made the memories of death so overwhelming, not realizing that she was preventing her sister slayer from investigating the thing that had initiated her recollections. When she had recovered enough to investigate the alley, they found that she had delayed them so much that all they saw of whatever had been there was a retreating back as a dark shape disappeared out of the other side of the alleyway.

They sprinted through the alleyway, but were yet again unable to catch the cause of the disturbance, this time due to Faith tripping over something in her path. Buffy turned to see what had caused her partner to slow and was stopped by the sight of the thing that had felled her.

The body that lay with its legs across the alley had been hidden from view the way she had come due to a stack of crates; but now it could be seen in all its horrific glory.

The man, it seemed from the wounds on him, had not only have been in a fatal fight tonight, but had been in many others over the past weeks resulting in a intricate pattern of half healed and new wounds covering the parts of his skin that could be seen through his shredded and bloodied clothes.

She looked from the body to the thing that had caused Faith to stumble to the other side of the alley and throw up what little of her lunch remained in her stomach. The man's head had rolled away when the body collapsed and was lying on its side, as yet un-clotted blood dripping from an eye slit in two.

Buffy noticed a strange wrinkling around the edge of the face wound, and was about to investigate the cut closer when she heard sirens coming closer to them from down the road that the figure had disappeared down. She grabbed Faith and sprinted away from the sound of police cars.

They had already raised enough notice in the demonic world as they travelled across the country and didn't need the attention of humans as well.

* * *

When they came to a halt Faith collapsed against a lamppost and spat to try and rid her mouth of the foul taste that still remained. She peered at Buffy, embarrassed by her reaction to the maimed body, but unwilling to show more weakness in front of her one-time enemy.

Noting her friend's discomfort, Buffy didn't mention the alleyway. Besides they were still in an unsavoury neighbourhood, and the slayers' prey was closing in on the young women that they thought would be easy kills.

Buffy smiled as she noted Faith's suddenly heightened alertness when the younger slayer felt the wrench in her gut that signified the coming of their quarry.

The brunette glanced up at her partner in an unnecessary gesture to reassure herself that the other slayer had sensed the presence of their foes, and to shoot a cocky look that was a reminder of the blonde's promise earlier that night. The vampires closed in, and Buffy tightened the leash around her powers, not allowing the proximity of the things she was made to kill to turn her once more into an uncontrollable entity.

As she watched Faith slay, her sense of sight heightened, her power seeping out in other ways since she wouldn't release it and slay. Buffy could almost see the fight in slow motion; her enhanced slayer powers allowing her to react to the vampires that ventured her way, her prey only realizing their danger as they were thrown forcefully back towards the fray.

She was keeping such a tight reign on the abilities that would drive her to battle the toys she had promised Faith that she failed to pick up the additional heartbeat in the alley. By the time there were only three vampires left the observer had made his decision and, sheathing his sword, moved away from the pair of girls to plan a mode of attack.


	10. CHOSEN X We're on Our Way to the Hellm

**_We're on Our Way, We're on Our Way to the Hellmouth_**

He didn't really care how a young Immortal had become involved with a Slayer. Perhaps she was the victim of a vampire that had risen in a way that intrigued the Chosen One. It was the problem of separating them that was bothering him.

When he first witnessed the duo they had been taken by surprise and so he had assumed that patrols of the night would leave his prey unattended and vulnerable.

Unfortunately as they meandered northeast across the country they stuck close to one another and repeatedly managed to lose him during their night time wanderings, disappearing around comers as he hung back, unwilling as he was to be observed before it was time.

As far as he could tell she was young, barely out of her first death it seemed at times, though occasionally something about her attitude added some decades onto his judgment of her age.

Not that it really mattered, either way she was definitely not old enough to be a challenge to an Immortal who had witnessed the commencement of industry. One who had taken more than his fair share of heads too.

He watched the two separate and felt a surge of adrenaline flood through his system. She was finally his.

* * *

The town was small to say the least, and had they wished they could have pressed through to the Hellmouth itself, but Buffy had been feeling… something… niggling at her senses for a while, and she felt it was time to deal with the thing that was tracking them.

Though adding another night before they were reunited with her happy band of helpers was definitely a plus. She may have gained more control over her powers and memories of previous lives; but that didn't dim the memories of this one.

Their stalker had seemed unwilling to approach them as a pair so, with a nod from Buffy to reaffirm that it was there, Faith waved goodbye and headed in the opposite direction. Since Faith didn't seem to be able to feel… whatever it was, they had assumed it was following Buffy.

She headed towards the outskirts, to the warehouses that would be devoid of life at this time of night, and smiled as she felt her tag along draw nearer.

* * *

The girl was alone in an area that, though in daytime might be bustling with the industry that kept the town afloat, was currently devoid of any life but theirs.

If he hadn't witnessed to duo in other towns going immediately to similar areas in search of the un-dead, he would have been suspicious. But trailing them for a week had lent some form of normality to abandoned streets and he didn't think to question why she had ventured into such a place without her slayer escort.

Not even when he rounded a corner to see her waiting for him.

It wasn't until his eyes adjusted to the dim light between the tall buildings, when he saw the calm expression on her face. Only then did he realise just how bad a mistake he'd made.

* * *

She stood waiting for him to come to her but now that their tag along had finally decided to come forward and meet her he seemed to have lost the nerve to do whatever it was that had caused him to follow them for so long. Buffy smiled as she felt Faith move in behind the man.

He surprised her by noticing this acknowledgement of her partner, turning to see what was there and panicking slightly at finding the slayer blocking any retreat.

Pulling himself together he drew a sword out of his long coat and fell into a ready position facing Buffy. The presence of the sword in his hand seemed to give him a boost of confidence, he calmed in the way that all good fighters must to survive, ignoring outside worries and concentrating on what was to come.

"I hope she knows not to interfere in this. You know we must fight one on one." He spoke easily as if he didn't have behind him a girl that could easily overpower him. Of course so could the one he was now facing off against, but he hadn't learnt that yet, didn't see how far out of his league he had gone.

Faith glanced at Buffy, sure that the other slayer could handle this man but unwilling to ignore the fight without a request from her friend. Buffy stared for a moment longer at her aggressor seeing him with every sense she had, trying to figure out what it was about this man that made her head spin in such a disconcerting way.

He seemed so normal, besides the fact that he carried a sword around and that from his stance it was obvious he knew how to use it.

Finally she nodded to Faith, letting her know it was okay to back off and leave this fight to her without ever turning her head away from her challenger as he slowly began to approach her.

"She won't join in." Buffy reassured him, making him divert his attention for a moment to the girl who had somehow managed to make the wall a good place for a nap since she had been denied entry into the fight to come.

* * *

Turning back to his opponent he noticed that she still had no sword and for the first time since stepping into the alley he felt a surge of hope. "Draw your blade."

Shrugging she span in a carefree manner, arms outstretched displaying close fitting clothes that had no chance of hiding a sword. When she made the full circle to face him again a grin filled her face, "Well I guess I must have left it at home."

Her complete lack of concern over this fact almost destroyed the confidence he had regained when he suspected it, but he managed to buoy his feelings. She may be older than he had suspected but unarmed he still doubted the girl would be a problem… as long as her pet slayer stayed out of it.

"I will take your head, sword or not" and with that final warning he lunged towards her.

* * *

Buffy easily sidestepped the blade and stood poised waiting for his next attack, gauging his skill and strengths, but most of all trying to work out what it was about this seemingly normal man that not only made her senses go haywire but also prompted him to pick a fight with her.

Without a second thought he bought his blade back for a second strike, using skills gained through years of practice that made his body react before his mind even comprehended what had happened.

When his thoughts did finally catch up he stepped back into a defensive stance wondering how she had managed to move fast enough to avoid his attacks. Unfortunately for him his opponent had given up her games and was finally retaliating.

She lashed out with a fist that moved faster than anything he'd seen. Instinctively he moved his blade to block a blow that could easily immobilised him, but managed to only divert the attack not stop it, causing what would have been a non fatal blow to his upper torso to crash with surprising force into his unprotected gut.

* * *

Completely winded he stumbled back a few steps. He coughed and blood came out from his mouth, spraying down the front of his pristine white shirt. Looking down in confusion at the dark pattern on his clothes he bought up a hand to touch to the thick liquid still clinging to a lip, appearing baffled when he found the blade still within his grasp.

Opening his hand to release the Sword he touched his lip confirming his suspicions as he saw the wet blood on his fingertips. With that single hit something had broken within him and though he could feel it trying he knew this was too bad for his Quickening to fix before he succumbed to the injury.

His brain suddenly caught on to the events around him, and was for some reason fixated with the lack of a sound when his sword dropped. Catching a glint of polished steel he found that his opponent finally had a weapon in her hand, his.

He fell to his knees, more a control of an involuntary action than a subservient action, but it suited the occasion, the inevitable end, "Finish it" he croaked before being overcome by another fit of coughing that sprayed blood over the concrete at her feet.

The world was going black and in his last moments of awareness he tried to claw his way back to coherency not wanting to lose his head while lying lifeless on the floor.

* * *

Faith walked over to the other slayer who was fixated on the body at her feet.

"I didn't hit him that hard…" she mumbled as they both heard the deflated burble of his last breath escaping through the blood in his airway.

"I guess not hard for a demon is different to not hard for…"

"He wasn't Human." Buffy broke in, insistent about that fact. Still able to feel that otherness that had alerted her to his presence emanating off his body, "And he might not have had any powers but he did want to kill me. He wasn't a good man."

And she didn't know when the last statement had started to matter more than the first, but it had. Whether or not he was human was irrelevant because he wanted to see her blood spill and that made him as bad as anything else that had done the same.

"There was nothing else you could do B"

The blonde nodded once, then again with more force, as if the very act would shake the disputing thoughts out of her head. She dropped the sword and turned to walk out of the alley, away from the evidence of what she'd done.

"We can't leave this here" Faith shouted after her, kicking at the weapon so it rattled across the concrete with a sound to put teeth on edge. She bent to pick it up and made a few experimental swings with the well balanced blade.

When Buffy seemed to pay no attention to the object she grinned, inspecting it with evident pleasure. "Looks like I've got a new toy." She said happily, trying out a lunge as she followed after the other Slayer.

* * *

Hours later as the noon sun finally lit the ground between the tall buildings; the crumpled form took a strained breath and rolled over with a groan.

There were good sides to the immortality biz, but one of them was not the first few moments after you came back to life. He supposed he should feel joy each time that it hadn't been as final as it was for most, but mostly he just felt drained.

And in a lot of pain.

Slowly getting to his feet he didn't stop to wonder too hard why the girl had left him alive, merely thanked his lucky stars that she had; and started to shuffle out of the alleyway.

He couldn't feel her presence but didn't want to take his chances that she'd change her mind so, with a glance up at the sun to check the direction, headed as directly west as the streets would allow.


	11. CHOSEN XI Where the Heart is

**_Where the Heart is_**

It was the first time she'd done a real patrol since she had become Chosen. That was how she differentiated it from what she'd been before. Before she was the Slayer, now she was Chosen.

It had been a massacre in LA, she had played games across the country with Faith and had slaughtered everything they found on this new Hellmouth in far too few nights. And now there was nothing to do but the routine clean up. Trawling through the cemeteries to pick off the newbies.

Buffy strolled through the graveyard, not needing the careful directions she had been given to find the grave. She could feel him, his demon calling out for her blood. Hers answering the call. But as she got closer to the marker she felt something else sweep over her, her senses flickered and she felt almost disembodied.

Pulling herself back together she continued; but there was still something else there at the edge of her awareness, recognisable as a part of her but wrong in some way as well. Something that was picking up more than usual from the vampire below.

It had always been there, usually such a faint awareness in the back of her mind that it was unnoticeable. The knowledge of a vampire's movements and actions that made it easier for a slayer to anticipate what was to come in a fight.

It had never really been anything concrete just something extra to feed the instinct that was already being lead by millennia of experience. Yet another way to get one up on her prey.

But here, now, for the first time since her newly gained unity had ended Willow's spell and filled her with power she stood beside a grave feeling the slumber of the body inside as it prepared to arise. And somehow she was with him. She was within the grave as eyes opened to find themselves in the claustrophobic space, as hands clawed at the coffin, pulling it apart with strength borrowed from a demon.

The creature was there, at the forefront of its mind not worried or confused but hungry, oh so hungry for the blood of the heart he could hear pumping above him. That was bearable... just about. To feel, to be the demon as he dug his way up to her. Unfortunately that wasn't all there was in the head of the monster, greatly overpowered by the bloodlust of a newly turned was the whimpering consciousness of the man that had been turned.

That reflection that all vampires had of the being that had once given their body life. His emotions as he struggled through the earth, up and out, as it filled his mouth with soil and gave him nothing to do but swallow, these thoughts and fear were mirrored perfectly in a memory that was all Buffy's. And was therefore far too recent for comfort.

As the fledgling vampire forced his way out of the grave the Chosen One screamed, a sound that was heard cemeteries away by Faith. By the time the other slayer arrived Buffy had already got her prey out of his grave, frantically digging down with her bare hands until she found skin and then pulling for all her might.

Desperate to get him out of there. To get these thoughts out of her head. When Faith joined her Buffy was punching the unfortunate vampire across the graveyard as she tried to beat out the memories he had uncovered.

She didn't wait for risings anymore after that, sending Faith or even one of the Scoobies when it came down to a last resort. Joking that they needed the practice. But they all knew that this Buffy wouldn't give up a kill for something as mundane as that. They had heard her nightmares in the nights that followed her patrol.

How could they say anything? When they knew what the cause of this pain was. It wasn't even about the fact that she had been in a wonderful place before they pulled her back to earth. They had left her in the ground.

When they pulled her soul back into that broken body, willing her to live, they hadn't even thought about where she would be when she awoke.

* * *

The snow began to fall again, masking the stains of blood that marred the once pristine landscape, covering up the pieces of flesh that were all that remained of the beasts who had dared oppose her. Reluctantly she turned from the corpse and went back to the people she called friends.

She didn't acknowledge them but they crowded round her as she walked away from the battleground, happy that another of their plans had succeeded and the world was safe once more. Failing to notice that Buffy was still in battle mode, trying to hide that these kills had done nothing to sate her lust for violence, that all they were was an appetiser which barely satisfied the immediate hunger.

_"That flip was just… wooooah! I mean one minute the second one was running right for you, then boom! over the top. I thought he'd killed the green one with his claws before the head fell off. Mid-air decapitation!"_

Xander accompanied his commentary of the fight with outrageous gestures distracting the group from the silent slayer.

As the local vampire population had been slaughtered in the weeks immediately after the arrival of the two Slayers, it was becoming a rarity to find anything to calm Buffy's need to kill.

The Scoobies all felt it, the tension that would build up in their friend reaching a boiling point when the blonde would snap at the slightest annoyances before she would disappear, taking a random bus to a town where she could vent her frustrations until there was an ever widening circle around the Hellmouth devoid of all supernatural life.

But they never understood. They encouraged her, helped her in every way they dreamed of but didn't have an ounce of understanding of the problem. To them this was something to suppress, to control and lock away into a tidy box like all the bitter memories of distrust and expulsion.

_"Buffy?" a tentative hand touched on her arm. Dawn. She turned to smile weakly at her sister, knowing that if the girl wasn't acknowledged she'd have to make even more of an effort in the coming weeks to act like she was right there with them._

And so she smiled at them, and laughed when Xander repeated his joke, and hid the fact that all her attention was fixated on the drops of blood dripping from her sword onto the blank canvas of snow, wondering emptily if hers was the same deep red. She hardly knew anymore, never given a chance to bleed.

Hide it away like the memories of being dragged from a place where she felt more loved and cared for than she had even in her mothers arms, only to find it was her friends that had done it.

_They returned to the house where Dawn cooked up a feast to sate the hungries, and Xander offered to help Faith with the other post Slaying desire. And even the other Slayer didn't see that Buffy was still high from the smell of blood where it was splattered on her clothes._

They didn't see that it had always been there, the only difference was that now it was stronger. So much stronger. She had always felt this need to go into the night and _kill_. They thought it was a sense of duty that had made her patrol, a desire to protect the weak, and that may have been a part of it, but it was never the whole.

So she went to find more things to kill, more beings that had been drawn like a moth to the flame of the Hellmouth. And she survived because she didn't know how not to. But she never learnt to live.

* * *

Living… living for them used to be the easiest thing in the world, she had gone out night after night and she fought so hard to survive so that she could come home to them.

A natural piece of her life.

Their love was something to strive for. Their trust the only thing she believed in.

She had once thought they understood. That they'd taken her off the pedestal long ago. Seen her faults in all their glory for what they were; a part of her whole. Taken her flaws and incorporated them into the love they felt, as she had with them. Because it is people's failings that make them wonderfully real, easier to believe in than Gods.

But then they showed how hollow that trust was, ripping away the foundations of her self-belief. She'd built herself again without them to support her.

And now living for them was as hard and harsh as breathing had become since she returned from her resting place beneath the soil of the Hellmouth. Trying to make herself lean on people she'd already seen crumble.

Staying here was killing what was left of her, and destroying what she'd once loved about them. She couldn't do it anymore.


	12. CHOSEN XII The Chosen Two

_**The Chosen Two**_

Faith saw Buffy heading to the stairs and sped up to catch up with her, but as she passed the open door to Buffy's room she paused for a moment. Something seemed wrong with it. She looked over the barren room, trying to figure out what was different.

Xander had given it a coat of white base paint when they first moved into the house as he had in all the bedrooms, giving each occupant a blank canvas to personalise as they deemed fit. But Buffy's room had stayed that way. Devoid of anything that might proclaim this room as her own.

Her clothes had gone in the drawers and she slept on the bed but in the months since they had first moved to the city the slayer had never made the room seem much occupied. But this was all normal, there was nothing more or less than there usually was here. She turned from the room shaking her head to clear it of odd thoughts and jogged across the wooden floor to catch her friend at the top of the stairs.

"Hey B! Hold up..." as she skidded to a stop next to her, Faith noticed the small bag slung over Buffy's shoulder and some of the light in her eyes died. She realised what had been wrong.

Her room had been neat, tidy. Her bed had been made.

Buffy's bed was never made. She constantly wanted to be moving with all the new power flowing through her, and cleaning up is never the most vigorous of tasks.

Faith had known for some time that Buffy leaving was inevitable. There wasn't enough slaying even on the Hellmouth to satisfy the lusts of such a powerful Slayer, and her friends, who had been incapable of adjusting to the person that Buffy had become even before the battle with the First, couldn't understand what she was now. Buffy watched many emotions flash over Faith's face, feeling honored that the girl who was so reserved, at least in showing her emotions, felt comfortable enough with Buffy to let her see what she felt.

Despite having known this time would come, Faith still struggled with the reality that the person she had trusted most was about to leave her. If Buffy hadn't been the slayer she never would have heard the murmured words that came out with a sob, "Don't leave me." Faith met her gaze, eyes shining with tears that she would never allow to fall "I can't do this alone."

The words sparked something in Buffy and a memory hit her harder than any had in a long time. Since she had started to gain some control over her past lives. Since the nightmares of deaths had faded.

_**She was looking into a pair of startling blue eyes that were staring at her with the same deep emotion that she had seen moments before on the face of her sister slayer. The sun-bleached hair that fell around gentle facial features was set off by a sun so low in the sky that their positions allowed the face to eclipse it, giving the face in front of her an ethereal look._

_Her senses were going haywire. She could feel the sharp stones underneath her like daggers digging into her skin, distracting her from an ache in her side that was no doubt the reason she was on her back. The sight in front of her started to blur as it became a strain to keep her eyes in focus. She could just about make out the face above her twisted in grief and heard the words that were sobbed through the tears._

_"Don't leave me." Her vision cleared again as the pain reduced to an ache and she saw the longing, loneliness, the love shining through the tears that were starting to fall. "I can't…." There was a weary, exhausted by life, look in the youthful eyes that begged her to fight her injuries. To stay._

_She felt a small smile cross her unfamiliar features and reached up to push back some of the short locks that had fallen in front of the face. The movement of her arm pulled at a wound in her side that had been merely a low ache beforehand. Now pain that even a slayers body was unused to shot through her midriff._

_Not wanting to add to the tears silently streaming down the face in front of her, she schooled her face not to show her agony and gently brushed her surprisingly dark fingers across the tear strewn cheek, leaving a trail of blood along high cheekbones. With a contented smile she painfully lowered her arm into the growing pool of blood around her._

_The woman saw the flash of pain in her eyes and in an instant was at her side, lifting her weary body to be embraced in her lap. Where their flesh touched she felt a something run through her nervous system, something so different to the pain that had just left her breathless; but equally powerful. That sense of comfort, of completeness had nothing to do with her wound and everything to do with the bond, the destiny they shared. Desperate eyes looked down at her as the slim girl easily cradled her above the blood soaked earth._

_"Please..." a tear fell through the inches separating their faces to land on her cheek "I can't do this alone."_

_The pain was now so overwhelmingly intense that her mind blocked it out and all she could think of was the person in front of her, glad that at the end of it all they were here together. There was a sense of disembodiment as she lifted her arm up to pull the face closer so that her last breaths wouldn't be whisked away on the wind._

_In a strangled whisper so quiet that even a Slayer found it hard to catch the words she breathed, "Trust that we will find one another again" As she sank into oblivion she felt a feather-light kiss caress her lips and deep in her soul she heard "I do."_

_Then there was nothing but a comforting darkness wrapping itself around her, making her feel safe and loved.**_

She thought it was passed, as she once more gained her focus on endlessly deep brown eyes that had regained their composure while she lost herself in the past. The despair was gone but the worry that replaced it was just as hard to deal with, just as impossible to cure.

"I…" Buffy started, trying to think of something, anything to say that could be right in this moment. Explain away what they both knew. Why she had to leave. Why Faith had to stay.

The memory, as all those of death seemed to do, had made the part of her that was the Slayer stir within her. However this time, there was something different. No desire for revenge. There was only…

_**The smell. It was so strong it overpowered everything else there was._

_Blood._

_This wasn't just any blood. The power flowed off it even as it seeped into the ground._

_Mine._

_She recognized the power, the smell, and knew only that it was hers._

_Gone._

_It was fading; that sense of power, flowing from the body along with all that blood._

_NO!_

_She roared as she felt the last drop of power go, leaving the body cold, the liquid that had warmed it pooled about them._

_She cried out in pain because her other was gone and the being that kept her trapped had broken right alongside her, allowing her to voice her anguish.**_

Buffy found herself once more looking into Faiths eyes; trapped by deep wells that jumped between conflicting emotions every time she regained her focus. Within them, beneath the hurt that shimmered on the surface, she could see what she knew was in hers, reflected back. The killer within her had surfaced, and it had bought the other slayer's bloodlust right along with it.

In that instant, with the power of their shared demon drifting between them on a tide of emotions she knew what to do. She joined their hands trapping them in a loop of energy flooding out of Buffy into the other place it recognized as home; then back into the Chosen One when it grew too much for Faith to take.

"Can't you feel it?" She asked breathlessly, wallowing in the joy of allowing her power out so freely "Feel how connected we are?" Buffy broke their physical connection but the power flow continued, the energy of all Slayers surging between the two current holders of that title "Trust in this. Know that you're not alone."

Buffy waited until Faith nodded, unable to speak when she knew the timbre of her voice would betray her. Show just how much it broke her heart to watch the other girl leave. Hoping her assumptions were wrong.

But Buffy only gave her that awful knowing smile. The one that says 'I know what you're doing but I'll let you' and with a light kiss on the cheek, because how do you say goodbye to someone that caught you sneaking away, she turned and walked away from Faith.

* * *

She had half-known that they would come. It would have been impossible to see Faith and not realise what had happened. What else could leave the girl who had so easily shrugged off her lover's death completely devastated? However, now that they were walking through the waiting room towards her, she just wanted to run.

Escape to anonymity where she could ignore the memories of her most recent life. Hide behind ones where there wasn't anyone but herself and the endless fight for survival. She was vaguely surprised that Faith herself was leading the group towards her, all her expectations would have been on Willow or her sister taking point on this futile mission to bring her back. Didn't they know she'd left them long ago?

"You forgot this." Faith threw the bag she held at Buffy's feet where it landed with a muffled metallic noise.

There was no need to look to see what was in the bag. She could feel it, like she could feel the connection to the girl that had given it to her there was another, deeper connection to the thing she was being given. She thought of the intense flow of power that had so energised her earlier, knowing that the same could be achieved with the scythe. It had been forced to hold the power of the Slayer and could be used to inflame what she held within.

She looked up into brown eyes and knew she couldn't take it. Take this physical reminder of their connection away from Faith. More than that she didn't have the right.

"The scythe was meant to be passed through the slayer succession along with the power. You're the current slayer Faith. You always have been, from the moment you were called. Nothing that's happened to me changes that." Leaving the bag on the floor Buffy stood as a train pulled into the station, not bothering to look at its destination. She moved in front of the other three, waiting for what they had to say, barely able to look at the tear stains down Dawn's cheeks.

She had expected anger, reprisals... anything but the desperate hug she received as if her sibling was trying to enfold her in a protective layer of flesh. Buffy returned in kind, remembering not those false memories of a childhood spent together; but the oh so real ones of the past few years. When Dawn had been a living reminder of the reason she fought.

"Come back to us someday."

The words came out in a choked whisper, ruffling her hair where Dawns' head rested on hers and then, as suddenly as it had began, she was free again; Dawn walking away from the group in the same sharp pain-filled strides she had used following their mothers coffin.

Buffy was afraid to look up at her two oldest friends; terrified of seeing the same understanding Dawn had given her reflected in their eyes. Because with that response she realised what she should have known all along, too lost in her own pain to appreciate that they were allowing her to pretend. They somehow understood that this... this was something they couldn't fix, and had allowed her the premise of normality as long as she wanted.

She fell into an embrace as fierce as the one that had preceded it; content to just hold the only two people who knew everything this life had done to her. When they broke apart she sent one last look at Faith, who alone seemed poised to grab her and physically prevent her from leaving; the only one with anything beyond resignation in their eyes. As she turned away from them Buffy saw that last spark of hope die fade out of chocolate brown eyes, and couldn't help but pray she hadn't killed it forever.

Without a backwards glance she walked away from everything that had defined her life so far, and got on the train to nowhere.

~ **Fin**~

_Having reached a break in my tale, this seemed as good a time as any to comment and reflect on what has been written. A large part of this story was never meant to happen, Buffy and the Scoobies were going to part ways when she returned from her drunken night in Chapter II. Whenever I tried to write that confrontation it never gelled with how I see the characters and so some level of reconciliation was made, and Buffy took her road trip to Cleveland._

_I often seem to find that these diversions from my plans lead in exactly the direction I needed to go, and this was no exception, allowing us to view Buffy's state through their eyes. Now we've finally made the break, all pretenses gone. How far through the deceptive mask they saw… well I'll leave that up to your interpretation. We're heading for a slight change of pace and style when we pick up our favorite slayer's tale, but first I hope you'll enjoy the coming interludes that somewhat bridge the gap between what has been and what's to come._

_If you've ploughed through this and got all the way to the end I think its safe to presume that you like it (or don't completely hate it), so I really would love a review to say why. If you're in too much of a hurry to read the rest... well I'll take that as a compliment and hope to hear from you when you get to the end of what I've done so far. In the mean time let us leave Buffy as she travels into the unknown._

_**LilGreenImp**_


	13. Interlude BOUND I Chains

**Bound**

_What does it take to control inner demons?_

* * *

**_Chains_**

He had vaguely anticipated meeting someone from his past when he came here. Coincidences had happened too often in his youth for him to not expect it. But when he saw her it wasn't the girl he'd thought he would see on the streets of Istanbul.

* * *

She smelt him long before she saw him. That aroma of leaves and animal that seemed to follow Werewolves everywhere.

But there was more to this scent than just that. This wolf stank of dark power though she could feel the chains of belief binding that darkness along with the beast, deep within him. And the smell of the power was so familiar it hurt.

The scent of the Hellmouth.

* * *

They met and both knew it had been inevitable. Two Scoobies couldn't travel the globe without meeting one another.

"Oz"

"Buffy"

They didn't ask how the other was, both could see, feel the creatures that roamed behind their eyes waiting for a chance to escape.

She touched the beads wrapped around his wrist watching with the part of her that could sense the supernatural as the slight movement in them affected the shackles around Oz's wolf.

"Help me" looking up from where her hand held his she glanced hopefully into his eyes knowing she didn't need to elaborate. They both knew what she meant.

* * *

The next morning they left Turkey. Traveling into the rising sun, they went to find some restraints for Buffy too.


	14. Interlude BOUND II Belief

**_Belief_ **

That's what it took.

What she needed to control the thing that threatened to take over her body.

Belief.

The monks didn't seem to expect it to be their God that she put her faith in. Just told her once again that if she wanted to put chains around the thing within she needed it.

Needed to meditate on her beliefs; pray to her God. Somehow make a deal with the divine so they would lend the light with which she could fight the darkness within.

How was she meant to pray when she'd seen so many empty beliefs, taken part in them?

When she'd fought throughout countless short bitter lives for the hope of something better, of being welcomed by a God that would love her for what she'd done and protect her like she'd protected others on Earth.

She'd never been allowed to stay in that safe place between worlds, always crafted once again into a champion to die fighting for what was right.

What kind of reward was that?

She decided that if there was anything, anyone up there, it wasn't someone that she owed anything to.

No chance of heaven. No chance of escape. All they had given her was battles and blood.

She needed something to believe in.

So she chose the only thing that had never let her down, never failed her through all her lives.

She chose Herself.


	15. Interlude ENVY

**Envy**

_If you live forever, what makes you jealous?_

* * *

She had thought she was ready.

That she could greet her friends and withstand their wrath. That she could make peace with them.

But looking upon them she merely felt the same anger that had been there seemingly forever return. With her enhanced senses she could see the lines around Willow's eyes that had once only been there when she laughed, the scattered grey hairs amongst pitch black that only served to make Xander look distinguished, and she didn't need slayer eyesight to see the occasional stumble in Giles' once sure step.

Only Faith seemed as unaffected by time as Buffy, still looking just into her twenties with her raven hair falling around features as familiar to Buffy as her own. Though Faith's physical appearance had barely changed, it could be seen in the slight way she favored this leg; that arm. Scars left by wounds deep enough to still hinder even a slayer affecting her in ways unnoticeable to anyone who hadn't studied postures and martial arts.

Buffy looked upon the friends that she had once called family and was angry at them, at herself, at the way things had turned out. The changes in the Scoobies only served to remind her that they were slowly but surely heading towards the one thing she longed for; the one thing she would never have.

They might die tomorrow, but oh how she envied them that uncertainty.


	16. CHOICES I Raining Blood & Ashes

**Choices**

_Long ago a girl was Chosen. Chosen to fight, to die. To protect us forever. What will Buffy do when given a choice?_

* * *

**_Raining Blood & Ashes_**

Stepping out into the rain, the scent and bustle of a city once more surrounded her, comforting in its anonymity. She felt adrenaline begin to make its way into her veins as her senses took in the faint twinge of vampires chancing it outdoors as the clouds shielded them from the sun's deadly face.

In a city as old and large as this, with shadow-ridden side streets and a constant influx of unknown tourists, the undead population thrived. Shouldering the leather satchel that contained a few changes of clothes and her small but deadly collection of weaponry, Buffy set off into the City. Somehow managing to move silently through the streets despite the wet leather of her coat that whipped behind her in the wind. She purposefully strode towards the most concentrated area of vampires.

She lowered her tight guard on the slayer power within, sending out a beacon announcing her presence to any non-human in the area. In a city that hadn't seen a slayer in over a century, there would be many stupid vampires, both young and old afflicted with a fatal level of arrogance. Who believed too strongly in their own dominance to ignore the blatant challenge that she was sending out.

She had met so many vampires in Eastern Europe, as she travelled west across the continent that had believed the slayer to merely be a myth. Tales of the massacre leaving a trail of dust across the east would be dismissed, as ever, as the frightened ramblings of foreigners.

Today they would come to her, drawn by their lust for power, but tomorrow they would cower in their hideaways for fear of their natural predator. Tonight they would be forced to realise they weren't at the top of the food chain. Then the hunt would begin. The smile that crossed Buffy's features as her prey closed in around her had no warmth in it, but the glint in her eyes showed her joyous anticipation of the fight.

* * *

Dust clung to her clothes, hair, skin. Mixing with the sweat and blood to create the scent that was pure slayer, life and death blended in a beautifully lethal combination. As the light of the dawn broke through the grey clouds in the East, she strode into the centre of the final vampire nest; an abandoned power station in the industrial district with huge ceilings that made the sound of her footsteps on the concrete reverberate through the building.

"Good Morning. This is your dawn wake up call. I hope you have a nice death" Buffy imitated the computerised voice used in countless motels across the USA. Unfortunately none of the European vampires seemed in the mood for jokes.  
The few vampires that had managed to sleep through her entrance growled as they were roused by her cheerful greeting echoing through their home. A dozen vampires threw themselves at the slayer. Too groggy in their half awake state to make any replies, they merely wished to rid themselves of the interruption to their sleep.

Buffy ducked and weaved through the punches, allowing their uncoordinated attack to be used against themselves as their punches missed their target and hit one another instead. Three minutes after her entrance to the lair there were only four vampires remaining. Two of them worked together, forcing the slayer back as she fought back. When her back was against a wall the stronger of the two grinned at her.

_"Not so cocky now are we?"_a growl rumbled in his throat as the smell of fresh blood from her wounds roused his hunger.

"Bored now"

Buffy tipped her head aside and seemed extremely amused by her comment, while the two vampires looked down in horror to find stakes in their chests before crumbling to dust at her feet. One of the remaining two vampires had finally gathered his wits, and made a run for the exit, exploding as, without glancing his way, Buffy threw a stake into his chest. She walked to the crumpled figure of the sole remaining vampire, working the kinks out of the shoulder she had dislocated earlier in the evening.

There was a deadened look in the demons eyes that was depressing even on a soulless creature, especially knowing from her encounters with Spike that vampires did have feelings, despite the fact that few took the effort to fight the demon and express them.

In nests of predominantly male vampires, Buffy often encountered one or two female vampires wh had been beaten and used by their counterparts. Some were even chained. Looking at the pitiful creature before her, Buffy made a decision.

"Can you talk?" The vampire looked up at her in confusion until Buffy realised her mistake and repeated in Italian _"Can you talk?"_she nodded, looking warily at the girl that had defeated her entire group with ease, and yet seemed to be attempting to strike up a conversation.

_"I'm going to leave now. I'd tell you to run but I don't know if you can anymore. Just let the master know I'm expecting him."_

At that the slayer turned on her heel, and strode out into the morning, the sky blood red as the sun finally emerged, marking the end of a night that had meant death to half the vampire population of Rome.

* * *

Buffy walked through the emerging dawn in the city and was assaulted by the hundreds of memories her surroundings invoked. The traders reluctantly awakening to open up their stores became roman slaves, already awake and about their daily chores.

She could even remember the smell. As she passed a street she had a flash of a demons corpse spread on the unchanged cobbled pavement, slowly disintegrating. The remembered pain of fatal wounds from battles she had fought nearby was added to the twinges from the fading scars of the nights battles, still knitting together after her active night. Knowing that she needed time to get her head together, she snuck into the Coliseum, resting on the stone seats.

_**The wavering thumb of her ruler descended._

The moss covered stones of the ancient building burned bright and clean for a moment

_The crowds cheered as the blade sank into flesh.**_

The arena around her aged nearly two thousand years in an instant. Midday sun dimming to early morning haze.

_**She was in the centre of the arena her shining armour dulled by blood and dust._

The construction hadn't even been completed, wooden scaffolding remained around the upper tiers.

_Gates opened on every side, hunger causing the Demons to throw themselves into the fight.**_

Sitting on the weathered steps, Buffy centred herself. Deaths were still the hardest memories to suppress, partially because she wanted to see them. To feel that moment of peace and safety when the pain stops as the world fades away.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Buffy had reorganised her thoughts and dragged herself out of the arena to her hotel and bed. Leaving as the first groups of tourists were brought in to be told about the battles fought for the pleasure of the mob. Delighting in the blood and gore, relishing in an assumed superiority over a civilization that enjoyed battles to the death staged for their pleasure even as they revelled in the idea of it. Gazing in horror at reconstructions of the costumes fighters wore to make themselves seem vicious. Demonic even.

* * *

She savoured the taste of an Italian coffee, unmarred by the effect of globalization on the quality of the beverage in most shops. The thick cream, the strong dark espresso. In this square the only memories that assailed her were of a childhood in the sun. Escaping with her neighbours to run riot in the streets. Slipping out during their siesta while the city slept. She looked back at the sign of the shop announcing 'The Best Coffee Since 1832' the plump Italian man edging between the tables, collecting glasses and chatting animatedly with his regulars must be the great grandchild, at least, of her playmate.

Finishing her drink, she looked up at the crowd of vampires who had been attempting to get her attention since sunset, finally ready to play their game. Buffy stood and threw some change on the table before moving to follow them down a side street. Knowing that there were another dozen vampires waiting for her in the gloom of the unlit street. Assessing each opponent, Buffy grinned these might actually be challenging to defeat, all over six decades old, none of the newbies that were usually sent to fight her.

* * *

Cassandra was walking across the square with some colleagues, when the twinge of an immortal's presence made her search the crowds with a wary caution. Finally focusing her gaze on a petite blonde striding towards one of the smaller streets leading out of the square, she realised that the Quickening was faint enough for this to be a new immortal. It had been a long time since she had even contemplated taking a student, but the agony in the girls' aura called to her. Making a decision she quickly changed direction, following the blonde.

Drawing close to the street down which the girl had disappeared, she ignored the cries of surprise from her friends as she heard the unmistakable sounds of fighting. She stopped in shock at the sight of the girl fighting ten fully grown men. The girl was distracted by her sudden presence, the feeling of the Quickening no doubt shocking her. The two women's eyes locked as the men overwhelmed the girl and Cassandra felt the distinctive pain of a vampires fangs sinking into her throat.


	17. CHOICES II I Did Not Die

**_I Did Not Die_**

Wandering through the gravestones in search of prey, Buffy finally ended up at the spot that she'd unconsciously been headed for the whole night. Here was the fresh grave of yet another victim that she had been unable to save. Another face to add to the millions of people slayers had failed. She paused for a moment to search for the twinge that would indicate a vampire ready to rise, finally allowing a slight smile to grace her lips as she felt nothing beneath her.

Buffy was about to continue through the deserted paths of graves, when the engravings on the headstone caught her eye. There was no name or dates. Nothing to indicate the identity of the one lying beneath the soil as is traditional on gravestones; just a few simple lines the meaning of which was surprising considering where they were.

_'Do not stand at my grave and forever weep. I am not there; I do not sleep.  
Do not stand at my grave and forever cry. I am not there. I did not die.'_

She stood looking at the italic script carved in stone, trying to discern why something so contradictory would be written on a Headstone.

"Weird, wonder where that came from" Buffy muttered to herself, finally shrugging to dismiss yet another of life's small mysteries, and was about to move past; on to yet another graveyard in her search for an opponent when a voice came out of the shadows.

"It's part of a longer verse"

The words floated across the graveyard through the crisp air of a European winter, light of the stars and new moon in the clear sky adding atmosphere to the already gloomy surroundings. Buffy turned around to see the figure of the woman that should be in the grave.

As soon as the voice had started, the same sensation that she had felt the night before just before seeing the woman flooded over her, as if a shroud had suddenly been lifted. Something in the back of her mind begged to be acknowledged, reminding her of when she had felt this before, but she pushed it down; needing to concentrate on the present.

As she took in the woman's features properly for the first time, she moved away from the headstone to give herself a free path of attack. With her dark hair standing out against stark white clothing Buffy didn't know how she'd missed her when passing by the tree she stood casually behind. Though there really wasn't a need to ask that; the slayer could sense magic being pulled as if by magnetism to the woman, replenishing what had been spent.

She warily watched the figure in front of her fingering the knife at the small of her back in anticipation of any attack, but unwilling to pre-empt a battle with someone who had seemed to want to help her the previous night.

"Whenever I have friends who don't know about Us, I have that on my grave. I hope it brings them some comfort, even though they will never know how true the lines are."

Buffy looked at the being in front of her in confusion, she was talking as if Buffy understood what was happening, as if it was normal for a dead woman to be walking around the next day… Well in Buffy's line of work it was relatively normal for them to be walking; but not for the sound of their heartbeats to be thudding in her ears as her caution caused all her senses to go onto hyper alert.

"How did you manage to sneak up on me?"

She warily eyed her opponent, moving to position herself on a slight rise so as to get an advantage in a fight.

"I am able to mask my Quickening and myself from sight, but it requires my complete concentration. I suspected that you might turn up here so I lay in wait for you."

"And now that you've found me?"

She asked warily, strengthening her grip on the blade, but for the moment leaving it sheathed. It was unlikely that this woman… demon… whatever she was, was lying in wait for the Slayer for a non malevolent reason. Noticing the change in the Slayer's stance and the new tension in her posture, the woman hastened to reassure her, finding something amusing in Buffy's tense attitude.

"Do not worry, young one. I will not challenge you now. The time of the gathering is not yet upon us and we may still co-exist in harmony."

"Gathering? Challenges? I don't know what you are, but if you intend to fight me let's get it over with."

She pulled the knife out and got into a fighting stance. The woman in front of her drew a long blade, as if from nowhere, pulling it out from underneath her flowing white coat, and gracefully settling into a defensive stance with the air of one used to the sword.

"Peace, child. This is consecrated ground. Surely your Teacher told you to never battle on Holy ground?"

Buffy laughed ironically, "That shows how little you know about slayers. I spend most of my time fighting in graveyards."

"Slayer? You're the Chosen One?" The brunette questioned sharply. The all-knowing tone that had so far dripped from her voice disappeared before her current confusion, even lowering her blade in surprise.

_She didn't know who I was?_

"The one and only. Now do I have to fight you, or should I go find some vampires?"

It was becoming obvious that the woman was no threat, but the tension of staying poised to fight for so long without any follow through was beginning to grate on the slayers high energy levels. She would have been getting antsy by this point of the night with no kills anyway and the adrenaline that had begun pumping when the woman first spoke wasn't helping matters.

"B..but that's impossible. A slayer can never become immortal."

All the arrogance had gone out of her voice as she murmured almost to herself, self doubt something she had not expected. Buffy smirked at the irony of her words.

"I guess I just don't stay dead."

"You really don't know do you? I'm sorry; I assumed you had been taught our ways, with the skill you displayed last night dispatching those vampires. You don't even have a sword on you tonight do you?"

She had finally regained her composure and the patronizing tone had returned to her voice. It was the same one that Angel, and to a lesser extent Spike had used when they talked to her of things they had learnt in their long lives. The voice a parent uses when talking to a young child, not expecting them to understand, but patiently explaining. It grated on the slayers' nerves.

"Believe me when I say that I can take care of myself."

"Who do you think you are child? Slayer or not you will die by the sword if you're not equipped to defend yourself."

Buffy looked at the lady in distaste, tiring of her mysterious hints at superiority. What gave this woman the right to demand answers from her without offering any in return?

"I am Death"

A flash of anger and hatred crossed the lady's face, turning the stunning visage into something twisted and horrific. Then just as quickly as it had come, it vanished. The brunette muttered to herself in a long dead tongue, and then looked up mockingly.

"That name is not yours to use little slayer. There is one far older than you who would not appreciate you taking liberties with it. You will, no doubt, pay for your arrogance. I ask you again, what is your name?"

Buffy had long outgrown the time when she allowed anyone to talk to her like that, using the exact same tone and lowering her barriers so the power of the slayer and age of her soul seeped out she advanced on the woman. Despite the nearly foot difference in height in the woman's favour, the slayer somehow seemed to tower over her; the energy radiating around her making Buffy larger than life.

"I have no name." Buffy switched from Italian that they had both been using to the ancient tongue she had been insulted in, "I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound." changing to Latin, a language she still associated with power, even after centuries unaffiliated with the Roman Catholic church "I am destruction. Absolute. Civilizations have risen and fallen since I first walked this world. Forests have grown in the desert. I'm bound to the earth, the first champion. I defeated the last true demon and banished it to hell. I've fought for longer than you've drawn breath, and will continue to long after you're gone. I am The Chosen One."

The waves of power coming off the slayer overwhelmed the psychic immortal. Even Methos' Quickening, with 5000 years behind him, had only a fraction of the strength of that from the petite blonde in front of her. Years of pain flowed off the slayer, memories that had become imbedded in her power.

Her entire aura screamed of death, more than Methos' ever had. The hollow eyes daring her to make a single move out of place made her realise that this image of innocence and light had earned the horseman's name long before he had taken it. Stumbling backwards, for the first time since her confrontation with the horsemen, fear pumped through her veins.

"Who and what are you? Is there any reason why I can't kill you?" Buffy was growling as she attempted to regain control of the slayer in her that called for her to prove her dominance.

_I will not become that person._

"I am Cassandra, Witch of Donan Woods. I mean you no harm. As for what I am, I am an immortal."

Cassandra used The Voice, forcing the power of persuasion into her words in an attempt to calm the slayer enough that she could slip away with no further confrontation. Unfortunately the Voice seemed to have no effect on the girl.

"She says like that explains everything…" Buffy sighed and looked up at Cassandra, obviously expecting her to elaborate.

"Immortals cannot die, healing almost instantly from most shallow wounds and eventually reviving after death, except from beheading."

"Why is it always beheading…" The slayer mused idly before fixing her gaze back on the Immortal, "So you thought I was one of you? That's why you came after me?"

"You are… as far as I can tell. Every immortal has what we call a Quickening, their life force so to speak, which increases with age. When another immortal is nearby their Quickenings interact and we can sense one another." She looked up at Buffy, taking her in with more than a mortal's five senses and once more being astounded by what she felt, "You have a Quickening, one more powerful than any I've ever felt, though you seem to know how to hide it so it merely feels the strength of one a few decades old."

Buffy smiled grimly. "It's a life force that increases with age… that makes sense" she muttered almost to herself, raising Cassandra's curiosity as to why. Why this wasn't more surprising to the Slayer, why did she almost seem to expect this. She didn't manage to voice her thoughts before Buffy continued her questioning, "But I still don't get why I need a sword."

"As I said the only way for an Immortal to die is beheading, when an Immortal takes another's head their Quickening goes into the victor, increasing their power. All immortals take part in what we call The Game."

"So this game? You fight each other for… Quickenings? What does the winner get?"

"No-one knows. Ultimate power perhaps. The knowledge to rule the world. It is said there will be a gathering. All Immortals will be drawn to a specific spot at a given time and will fight until only one remains."

"The last one rules, right?" A farfetched look came into Buffy's eyes "It must be lonely. Watching friends die. Killing the only ones who could keep you company." An image of Angel giving his reasons for leaving her reminded her of the irony of her new abilities. She could finally spend eternity with him, but couldn't bear to be in the same room.

Cassandra was shocked by how well the girl understood the immortal life, the sorrow that resonated through her voice. She had to find out the true story of this girl, but in order to do so she knew she would have to maintain her interest, reassure her that the immortality she had obtained wasn't the curse she seemed to believe.

"Not necessarily. I know of many immortals that co-exist peacefully, taking comfort in each others company. They would never fight without provocation. Also it has become traditional for an older immortal to mentor a younger one. Teaching them our ways and how to fight with a sword, so that they can protect themselves. Often resulting in lifelong friendships. Unfortunately there are also head-hunters, immortals that actively seek other immortals for the addictive power of their quickening and will kill a youngling or even pre-immortal on sight merely to eliminate competition. As with mortals, there are both good and evil immortals, and everything in between." Cassandra smiled grimly at the memories of her earlier centuries as an immortal in the company of the four horsemen, "If an immortal challenges another, that challenge must be met, and from the resulting fight only one will walk away."

"You were going to teach me to fight?" Buffy seemed genuinely amused at the idea.

"There's more to it than that. As you said the life of an immortal is lonely; you pass agelessly through the centuries as those you love wither and die. An older immortal can help the younger ones to deal with what they will go through if they are strong enough, skilled enough to survive. Teaching them how to remain anonymous, to change identities, how to live." Cassandra saw hope flare through the depths of pain in Buffy's green eyes, "You will need to carry a blade. If I was mistaken, others will be as well, and many if not most will wish to harm you."

Buffy sized up the brunette, fully extending all her senses. Cassandra felt something sweep over her, probing so deep it seemed like her soul being read and judged by the girl, her worth assessed. It was impossible to tell the outcome from the blonde's features, her face remaining impassive throughought. Finally Buffy looked back at the gravestone that stood to the side of the pair, reading the words and taking in the new meaning of the poem. Thinking of the thousands of gravesites, most now gone and forgotten, that stood in her name.

_'I am not there. I do not sleep.'_

She had never truly left her grave in Sunnydale, though she had clawed her way out of the earth.

_'The Slayer does not walk in this world.' _

She needed to learn to be a part of the world once again. Remember why she had so vehemently denied that statement; somehow rediscover that burning need to live. It was one thing to pretend to her friends, hoping that the next apocalypse would be her last, but if she was to survive eternity Buffy would have to do more than pretend. Perhaps this immortal could change that. Maybe she could help her live. It was time to wake up.

She looked back at the immortal, who was cautiously studying her face for a reaction, "Will you teach me to live?"

From the moment she had realised what the girl truly was her curiosity, something that had lain dormant for so long, had sparked. Cassandra desperately wanted to know how the Chosen One had gained immortality, but there was an ancient emptiness inside this Slayer that she didn't know how to combat, and only one person she knew who could hope to understand.

"No"


	18. CHOICES III Something Old, Something New

**_Something Old, Something New_**

She ran. From the woman who had understood so much, from the hope she'd felt bubbling up inside at the promise in her words; only to be snatched away with that quiet and defeated "No". Fleeing across soft grass, dodging between stones she let her thoughts get lost in the thud of her feet on the earth. And when she got to her room Buffy kept running, leaving Rome to the remnants of the vampire clans that had once ruled over the classical city. Running in a way that could almost not be considered fleeing anymore as she continued her death march across the land.

In all this running she'd managed to forget, or not think about, the rest of the sentence that had drifted after her across the graveyard; audible to Slayer ears even over the ever increasing rhythm of her feet hitting the turf. But in forgetting all Buffy had managed to do was ignore the fact that intentionally or no; she was headed directly towards the person, Immortal even, that Cassandra had sent her to; and now that she could feel him, her... whichever, it was unlikely she could turn back. From what she'd been told they would know she was here just as she knew they were.

Did he expect her? Or did he feel the itch of her presence and prepare for a fight where the only real rules were kill or be killed. What was it in her that had made Cassandra send her here? Her age, her pain, the blood she had spilled? Why was this Immortal, halfway across the world from where she had first learnt of the existence of their kind, the one who could help her?

* * *

The Scene in the bar when she entered was so casual it just had to be forced. She knew he would have sensed her as clearly as she did him; Buffy hadn't been trying to hide. She took in the visual portrait of a casual afternoon in a second, absorbing the layout of the bar and quickly assessing where she could gain the tactical advantage in case of a fight. Not that she was planning to fight, but it's always best to be prepared.

Buffy walked to the opposite end of the bar to where the man was sitting; forcing the barman to follow her away from the immortal. She noted in her peripheral vision how he tensed as his friend moved towards a potential enemy. He at least had noticed what she'd done and definitely wasn't happy about her drawing them apart.

Ordering herself a drink she leant on the bar, adding to the pantomime of normalcy they were all so busy promoting. Buffy absentmindedly watched the other occupant of the room go about her business; taking the chairs from where they had been placed on top of their tables and place them ready for customers. She considered how to approach the man at the other end of the bar.

Now that she was here, it seemed inevitable that they would interact; but 'Hi, this woman I met beside her grave said I should come here' didn't seem a good opening regardless of its truth. Her drink was set down beside her with a clank of glass on wood and she watched the barman carefully move back to the other end of the bar. Sighing, she looked down at the liquid; examining the colour changes while she swirled it about the glass as if somehow this would show her what to do.

She hadn't intended to come here and apparently whichever part of her subconscious had manipulated her into ending up outside the bar hadn't gotten beyond figuring out how to get her here.

"Are you here for something?" It was almost startling to hear such a calming voice coming from this man that exuded danger from every pore. Buffy looked up from her drink to meet friendly, worried eyes and the tension that had been rising so high since she first lay eyes on the neon bar sign and realised where her feet had taken her all flowed out.

"Yes." It came out more forceful than she had intended, putting the man back on his guard enough for the warmth to drain out of his eyes. His hand moved under his coat, no doubt reaching for the hilt of a hidden sword.

"I mean." she stammered, not wanting to alarm them, "I was told I might find what I need here; someone to teach me." she finished, holding his gaze.

"I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I teach those I choose, what right do you have to ask for this?"

"I'm sorry" Buffy glanced between the now annoyed man and his friend behind the bar, "I didn't mean to presume" she paused, still not really sure why she had come and so unable to think of a convincing reason, "Cassandra said..."

"Cassandra?" Duncan seemed if anything even more suspicious now, "Why would Cassandra send you to me to learn to fight?"

"She didn't, I don't need..." Buffy wasn't sure how to explain when she couldn't really define what she wanted to learn. 'To live' barely made sense saying it within her head let alone speaking the words out loud, and yet she was still dead inside.

"How can I know that she did? That you really know her?"

"I wouldn't really say I know her" she tried to think how to describe their relationship, "She died trying to help me fight some Va-muggers." Buffy corrected herself at the last second, figuring it'd be best not to sound too crazy if the immortal didn't know about vampires. "I walked by her grave and she was there, told me about Immortals and sent me here."

"Where was this?" The barman, she was probably safe in assuming he was Joe of Joe's bar since he had started pouring himself a shot while she talked, spoke at the same time as MacLeod demanded, "Is she okay?"

Before Buffy could respond to either of them the questioning was interrupted by the creaking of the doors, causing every voice in the room to go silent; all so used to keeping secrets they would not talk without first knowing their audience. A woman walked into the bar; casually swinging shopping bags she yelled out a greeting, "Hey..." any further words died on her lips as she felt the strange tension in the room. She shot a questioning glance towards Duncan before taking a closer look at the newcomer who was undoubtedly the cause of it all.

But the hard, almost jealous, looks Amanda was giving Buffy were nothing to those being returned. The blonde had gone pale and kept looking hungrily over her features without blinking as if the woman might morph into someone new if she looked away for a second.

"Amata" she sighed after a long minute when the eyes of the entire room focused upon the two girls and the force that seemed to have erupted between their locked gazes.

With that word the spell was broken, Buffy ran up to the woman and hugged her fiercely then picked her up and span her round in a circle with a laugh that contained more life than everything else she'd done since arriving combined.

Amanda stumbled as she landed; failing to exhibit the poise she usually had regardless of the situation. That name... she hadn't been called that in centuries.

_**The plan had seemed to go so perfectly, but that should have made her realise something was wrong. Her objective was too under protected for something so valuable, the entire grounds under a dozen guards? Rounding the corner in the road she knew her mistake but it was already far too late._

_The half dozen guards who had been waiting for her made their move far smoother than she had done in her thievery. They extracted their masters property from where it was hidden amongst her garments and then decided to take more for the trouble she'd given them._

_Just when she'd accepted her fate two of the men crumpled where they stood and when the others turned to see who had attacked their companions they were met by a flurry of fists and feet that soon had them joining their friends on the ground before they could even draw the flashy swords at their sides._

_She hated herself for it later, how she had acted when they first met, but it was the safest way she knew to get protection from a man instead of unwanted attentions; to play up the damsel in distress. And so she batted her eyelashes ad breathlessly said, "Why thank you kind sir…" but the rest of her speech left her as she looked into kind eyes that glittered with laughter._

_"And does the Lady have a name?" The voice was lighter than she expected and tearing her eyes away from his she noticed why. This was no man but a boy, still to grow hair upon his face... and yet he had saved her from... she looked down at the still unconscious bodies around them._

_"Amanda." She replied thoughtlessly forgetting her current alias, then tried to correct herself and held out her hand to be kissed court manner, "Uh, The Duchess du..."_

_Her attempt at disguise was interrupted by her saviour, "A pleasure to meet you, Amata." he said and bowed to kiss her knuckles in an extravagant fashion. Looking up cheekily to see if she'd noticed.**_

She'd fallen a little in love with him then, when those shimmering eyes looked up at her from behind her hand. Before they even really talked. Before she convinced him to accompany her back to town. Before she found out that the man who saved her wasn't even a boy but a girl.

When her saviour asked her why the cut on her cheek was already gone she found she couldn't voice the easy lie. The other girl had just as many secrets as she, and after they got to town neither one of them thought about parting.

* * *

The body was different, and after all Amanda knew best that her long departed friend had remained that way; her ashes scattered on the winds. Her slayer had refused to leave any remains to be tampered with. But the strength in the arms, the feel of the hug. That was something burnt onto her memory, unforgettably the same as that of her dead protector.

"How?" She murmured, feeling certain that the question she should be asking was 'who?' but unable to deny the knowledge that touch gave her. Even with how loudly all her other senses proclaimed that she was mistaken.

Dimly Amanda noted that her bags had dropped to the floor, sometime between the little blonde naming her and embracing her. Shutting her eyes to block out the sight that contradicted touch she breathed in the girl and knew for certain. That scent of dust and death wasn't something easily forgotten.


	19. CHOICES IV Things Going Bump

_** Things Going Bump**_

Joe had decided to close the bar for the evening, despite it being a Saturday night, sending the girl who had been setting out tables home. By some unspoken agreement they all recognised that what needed to be said would take more than a passing conversation and, from the way Amanda was alternating between staring dazedly at her drink; lost in resurfacing memories, and knocking back its contents, it would be a good thing to be near a ready supply of alcohol. Well that and Joe definitely didn't want to miss out on what he was sure would be an interesting tale; glancing over at the group as he reassured his bar staff by phone that yes, they would still be paid for the night.

"I take it he..." Buffy asked, gesturing towards Joe as he finally hung up, ending the conversation with the last of his staff and, pausing to grab a full bottle from behind the bar, made his way over to the group of immortals.

"Knows about immortals?" Duncan finished the unspoken query when she trailed off looking over at the bar, "Yes."

She nodded, sure there was more there but whatever it was; it probably wasn't her business. Buffy caught Amanda's eyes "And do they..."

"Know about Slayers?" Amanda interrupted, her tone almost threatening Buffy to deny that that's what she was, what she had been about to say, "No, they don't."

"Slayers?" Duncan looked confusedly back and forth between the two girls.

"It's what I am." Buffy stated. He took a deep breath, ready to tell her she wasn't given another life to wreak vengeance upon those that had slain her, but then he looked at Amanda and all that air came back out in a sigh.

As much as he wanted this to be, it didn't seem to be as simple as a new immortal who didn't understand what she was. There was something far more complex going on, and he got the feeling that however much they were told there would be more to know.

"Amata; why don't you tell them what you remember and I can fill in the gaps afterwards?"

_That name again. _It was all she could do, took every ounce of control, to not demand that this 'girl', this bizarre echo of her long lost friend, just tell her. How a Slayer became an immortal, why an immortal she'd never met spoke to her like an old friend, using a name she hadn't heard in nearly 700 years.

Amanda knew that the boys wouldn't let her shut them out while she got her answers so, rather than have them interrupt any time something they didn't know was mentioned, it seemed best to follow the Slayer's plan.

"We both knew there was something not quite right from the start. Al never asked and neither did I. Why worry too much about her slipping off into the night when all it meant was I didn't have to make up reasons to do the same. The plague was running rampant through the country and there was so much confusion that it was easy to..."

Duncan made a disapproving sound, interrupting Amanda's tale, "You used the chaos of all that death to steal?"

"Would I do that?" Amanda's attempt at looking innocent didn't have much effect on anyone around the table. "Okay! We all know I would, but I wasn't killing them Mac. I just used the conditions to my advantage."

"I don't remember the… conditions… making theft quite as easy as you're implying." Buffy commented.

The overt allusion to the circumstances of their meeting seemed to throw Amanda more than Duncan's accusations of amorality. She looked between them, shrugged and smiled softly, "What can I say? I seem to get lucky finding myself strong warriors willing to protect me."

"It had been perhaps two months since we had met and begun travelling together. I received an invitation to a banquet from the local Earl. This wasn't uncommon, as many of those more used to the society in town seemed eager to nullify any benefit they may have gained from the better conditions out of the cities by encouraging the large gatherings they were used to.

"What was strange was Alice's reaction to the letter. She had never shown much interest before in how I decided to spend my evenings, but that day she actually begged me not to go. When I realised she wasn't going to drop the subject I gave my word I wouldn't go to the party."

_**She entered the manor through a first floor window, ignoring the sounds below. The initial plan had been to sneak upstairs during the festivities, but this way her promise was kept. There would be far more exciting things to do tonight under the cover of all that merriment than take part, after all._

_As Amanda moved silently through the rooms the sounds below started to change. When it started it merely seemed to be shrieks of enjoyment, but soon the sounds couldn't be mistaken as anything but screams of fear. The music stopped playing, allowing her to hear the stampede of footsteps rushing out of the building, the noises of terror lessening as they were transported away._

_She would have to hurry; any kind of disturbance had a tendency to make men check on their valuables, though if they proved difficult to locate that could end up helping her. It wasn't until she heard the crackling which gave some indication of what had caused everyone to run that Amanda started to think perhaps the night wouldn't be as lucrative as she had hoped._

_The fire must have spread fast. It was already licking up the sides of the building; the tips of flames visible through the first floor windows which seemed to be her best chance to escape being burnt alive. Not that she would stay dead; a fire would not remove her head, but it was a painful way to die._

_If the fire had reached the beams then the floor could be unstable, Amanda hugged the wall; making her way along the edge of the room where the supporting walls should hold her weight. It was only when she reached the corner that the boards below her feet began to groan under the pressure. Taking a deep steadying breath, she continued but with only a one final resounding creak as warning, the floor gave way; sending her crashing to the room below, landing heavily, painfully, on one leg._

_Amanda looked up from where she had landed flat on her back in the centre of a large space at the partition wall she'd been pointlessly hugging, rolling out of the way as a chunk of the masonry crumbled away and crashed to the floor where she had lain. She sighed, a breath expelled so forcefully it felt like a hit, when she saw the oak of the floor buckled and cracked where the lump of bricks impacted._

_She staggered to her feet, her left knee complained as she tried to put weight on it and almost gave way beneath her, but somehow Amanda managed to support herself on the damaged limb. Now that she was up she could see the fire properly. It seemed to ring the room, licking with an unnatural intensity up the walls. Something had been used to feed the flames so that they would block escape through the windows; and now those fires were spreading, growing exponentially as they ate through the wooden beams above._

_None of this held her attention though. At the far end of the room, by the double doors that lead out of this once grand room, were a group of men fighting a lithe form that was almost familiar. As she watched the figure in the middle lunged at one of the men and then suddenly, he was gone, as though he had never been there. Amanda blinked and counted the men, so sure that there had been one more. She shook her head deciding she was still suffering from the fall; he had probably escaped the fight and the flames through the doorway, his disappearance a trick of the flickering light._

_Her quickening was beginning to work healing the bruises and twisted knee; the shuffled steps she had been taking turning into something more sure, more stable and when she finally got close enough to the brawl to see their faces. What she saw made her stumble to a halt. The men's faces were somehow disfigured, and the fighter somehow managing to holding them all back was a girl, not just any girl but the very one she had left behind in their lodgings at the inn._

_Alice noticed her then and gave her an almost cheeky smile, one that said both 'aren't I bad' and 'isn't this fun', before returning her attention to the… whatever they were. Unfortunately it wasn't only her friend that had become aware of her; one of the six 'men' turned to face her and snarled, causing his neighbour to look about too._

_They edged closer to her, flanking either side as they drove her stumbling backwards. Drawing her sword she tried to regain her footing, but her knee still hadn't completely healed from the sprain._

_"What do you think you can do with that?" One growled at her through elongated canines._

_"How about this?" She asked as, lunging forwards onto her uninjured leg she thrust between the ribs into his heart. He looked down at the fatal wound, bringing a hand up to touch it and coming away with blood._

_"Ouch!" Making eye contact with her he sucked his fingers, drinking the blood off them "That hurt!" But instead of showing any real discomfort from the wound he seemed to mostly just get angry._

_"The heads Amata; to kill them take their head." Alice yelled across the room. For a moment Amanda was confused, she knew these weren't immortals; but somehow he had survived a stab with a sword which at the very least had pierced a lung. Even an immortal would be on the ground recovering from that injury, and someone with no quickenning should be gasping their last few breaths._

_Amanda tried a swipe at his throat but the shout had also warned them of what she might try and he used his arm to shield his neck, coming away with a gash in his forearm. The blow at least made him fall back a few steps, but before she could take advantage of it she was grabbed from behind by the one she had forgotten. There was no give in his arms when she struggled; her arms held so tightly against her that she couldn't get any leverage to escape._

_"Hold her still" The one still in front of her ordered, "I think this one should replace the blood she spilt." he walked up to her and held her head in a vice like grip forcing her to turn to the side and expose her throat._

_He leant in to her throat, intent on biting her with those long fangs, but before he could do more than graze her skin with his teeth he disappeared into a cloud of dust. It stung her eyes, and filled her throat. This dry dust that had once been a man. Blinking the particles out of her eyes revealed Alice standing in the space he had disappeared from._

_Over her shoulder she saw the remaining two Alice had been fighting in the doorway coming up behind her friend. Before she could voice a warning they changed their minds, running away from the girl who had killed so many of them and had now slain the one that had been leading them._

_The one holding her dragged her back, holding her close against his chest like a shield. He hadn't thought of what was behind them and backed them into the burning wall, adding the scent of his burning flesh to the smoke on the air. Amanda could feel the flames almost licking about her legs, but the heat had made him loosen his grip and she managed to wrestle away._

_Without a proper hold on her, he gave up on using her as a hostage and pushed her out of the way. The unnaturally strong blow sent her flying across the room, smashing her head into one of the tables which at some point in the evening had been laden with food fit for the nobility that had attended the party. Now they lay haphazardly, knocked about when the guests had tried to escape and battered during the fight that followed._

_"Let me past Slayer, and you may live another night." Though his words were brave, his eyes betrayed him. The yellowed gaze shifting about the room as he tried to discover a means of escape. He tried to sprint towards the window but Alice blocked his route and with quick; efficient moves drove him back to where Amanda had dropped her blade._

_Falling to his knees beside the sword he grabbed the hilt and lunged forwards at Alice, trying something similar to what Amanda had done barely minutes before, but he didn't have the skill of centuries to help him guide the blade. A hand came up unnaturally fast to deflect the thrust, knocking the blade back to the floor._

_Together they grabbed, both reaching for the hilt, but this time it was her friend's turn to attack and she didn't wait for him to regain his footing after the slide across the wooden floor. With an upwards swipe that began the second she got a firm grip, Alice cut through his thick neck and he, like the others, dispersed into nothing but dust._

_"Well this gathering certainly ended with a bang." Amanda commented as she took the hand Alice offered to help her up._

_"I did ask you to skip the party" The energy hummed off the girl, making the air almost as volatile as a quickening; the fight had been hard, and Alice revelled in it. The danger and excitement. The chance to be what she truly was._

_"What were they, and what are you?"_

_"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." Alice replied in a teasing, sing-song voice; pointedly eyeing the cut on Amanda's forehead which was healing even as they talked._

_"I'm Immortal" They had walked through the doors of the ballroom as they talked, and were now in the hall which had mostly been safe from the fires. The stone floor unable to burn and without any trappings that could spread the flame. But at that response Alice stopped them both to give her a questioning look before responding in kind._

_"They were vampires, and I'm The Slayer." They both knew there was much more to be told before they were done.**_

"You're saying these... men were really vampires?" Joe asked looking to Amanda for confirmation. When she nodded he continued "And they just disappeared when they died?" His tone got slowly more disbelieving.

"I know it sounds crazy but... yeah." Her entire countenance lit up at the memories which were resurfacing after being ignored for so long, "We travelled across England hunting vampires for nearly three years before..." Amanda trailed off, unable to finish the sentence, even the thought.

"I know that look." Duncan accused, missing how the excited gleam had dulled, "You don't get that look in your eye by saving humanity from what goes bump in the night."

"Well… there were a few benefits." That slow sexy smile that always meant she was up to no good spread across her face "They're about as immortal as us Duncan, some of them collected… trinkets. I just took them back for humanity."

"From vampires." Duncan stated, though his flat, disbelieving tone made what he was saying more a request for affirmation.

"That's right, from vampires." Buffy spoke up for the first time since Amanda's' story had begun. "As in intense dislike of sunlight and garlic, stake through the heart to keep 'em down, Bram Stoker... vampires."

"Stakes. You hammer bits of wood into them." Duncan repeated, still stunned by what he'd been told.

"Well I more stab than hammer, super strength and all that. My… friends used to use wood soaked in holy water. It burns their flesh like acid making it easier to get through the intercostal muscles and hit the heart…" Buffy paused when she realised the logistics wasn't really what he was asking about. "Yes. Vampires are real, stake one it goes poof."


	20. CHOICES V Honour Among Thieves

_**Honour Among Thieves**_

The men sat for a minute digesting what had been said. It's hard to argue against someone who holds what seemed to be such a strong belief without turning into a 'I don't believe you', 'but I know it's true' conversation, getting neither party any closer to what's real. Better to just accept that they believe that what they are saying is real.

"What happened to make you stop?" Joe, with an attention to detail born of years as a biographer, had picked up on what Duncan seemed to have ignored.

"Stop? I haven't. I can't" Buffy responded. She could remember numerous times in this life and the ones preceding it when she had attempted to abandon her duty, only to be forced back to the task she attempted to ignore. The thing beneath her skin wouldn't let her stop, didn't allow any rest.

"No I meant Amanda, how come the two of you split up?" He gestured towards the immortal, the movement causing her to start and break her intent stare away from Buffy's face to look blankly at her friend.

"Alice died." The words were spoken in a sullen monotone that did not invite further inquiry. Staring into her drink, Amanda tried to forget, to send the memories of her friend back to the darkest corners of her mind where they could be ignored. Unfortunately he wasn't paying attention to nuances of her voice.

"And?" Joe had lived too long amongst immortals to see death as an adequate reason to leave behind a friend.

"And?" Something snapped within Amanda, her voice breaking and eyes flashing "And the best, only friend I had since leaving Rebecca was gone." The two men shared a look, but before Duncan could use the breath he took in she continued, her tone muted but firm, "I cremated her, scattered her ashes…"

_**She had become so used to Alice's improved healing that even after her friend came back to their lodgings battered and bleeding Amanda still hadn't prepared herself for the worst. Perhaps it was because she had begun to think of her companion as one of them, more likely it was just due to the fact that she could no longer imagine a life without her._

_What had been mostly getting through the days, hatching plans of thefts merely to fund her comfort and survival had become fun in a way Amanda hadn't realised life could be. Rebecca had taught her to fight, to survive, but most importantly how to trust another._

_Her crimes before meeting Alice had been born of opportunity, Alice had taught her how to make her own. Why wait for the owner to be distracted when stealing jewels from right under his nose was so much more of a rush. That may be the real reason she had never anticipated Alice's death. It was hard to remember that a woman so careless with her life was mortal, that someone so strong could fall._

_In retrospect, Amanda realised that for Alice it had been more about enjoying what time she had. The slayer had known she would die young, why not live as intensely as possible for what life she had._

_The morning after her friend took her last breath Amanda returned to the cave complex where Alice had received her mortal wounds. Nothing left that cave for a full day as the inferno she lit within roared._

_When the fire eventually died down to leave smouldering ashes the nearby townsfolk found some odd scorch marks on the sand, human outlines drawn in dust where the trapped men had seemingly run to escape the flames only to have them overcome and consume them. Some swore they saw a lady upon the cliffs, dressed in soot-covered rags and looking like some creature returned from the flame. Those with the best eyesight, or imaginations, claim she smiled down at the ruins left below, satisfied by her vengeance.**_

"without her… there wasn't a reason to fight." She finished, her blank gaze looking further back than most at the table could remember. It was too much, this sudden resurgence of everything she had worked so long to forget, and now when they had finally been laid to rest, slowly rotting in the edge of her thoughts, this… girl appeared shaking everything up, making the remaining dust of those memories cover everything.

"She was mortal?" Duncan confirmed, his tone confused, but laced with compassion.

Any immortal understood the pain of losing a loved one. It was the curse that went alongside their gift. Even if they only consorted with others of their own kind, there was still the risk that their friends would get caught up in the Game and come off the worse.

"But then how…" as much as he empathised with Amanda's loss of someone who might have been the first mortal the woman ever trusted, perhaps even the only one now that he thought about it. She had always been wary of allowing anyone too close, irrespective of their mortality, but there were no mortals he could remember that Amanda had cared for on anything beyond a superficial level.

"That's exactly what I'd like to know." The choked pain in Amanda's voice betrayed just the sort of caring Duncan had just seconds before been doubting she was capable of. For the first time he wondered what had happened, long ago, before they first met that had made this woman find it so difficult to trust, to love.

Regardless of her heartache, the sudden turn in events just when things were starting to make sense, if in an unbelievable manner, baffled the warrior. It had been hard enough to believe the tale the pair was spinning between them before this final twist.

All the attention in the room now firmly placed back on the newcomer, waiting for her to explain the improbable, if not impossible.

"I was The Slayer." Buffy started, unsure how to explain what they needed to know. She hadn't intended on telling the immortal she found much more than what she had been, that she was now immortal, but Amata being there changed all that.

The life she had spent by her side hadn't been a particularly memorable one, just another childhood broken when the calling gave her more to worry about than when the crops were due. Another traveller's existence with nothing but the road for company until…

Until a friendship gave it meaning. No. She couldn't just give them the basics. Amanda had earned far more than that.

"I thought you said you are one." Duncan's words interrupted Buffy's thoughts, forcing her to continue what she already knew she needed to say. If only she knew how.

"I am… it's… complicated." She sighed; she wasn't usually the one to tell new people about this. Or, well, whenever she had it was usually more a case of filling in a couple of gaps after they watched her kill a few vampires. How do you get from blank slate, from no knowledge at all about the world she'd existed in for half her life, for so many lives… how do you tell someone with no understanding of magic how, who, what she is, had become.

"Life generally is." Joe gave her a reassuring smile, his understanding such a contrast to the hungry disbelief from Duncan, or the shattered grief of Amanda, so Buffy fixed on those comforting eyes and let the words flow.

"When I had been a Slayer for seven years, we were forced to alter the way it worked. It used to be only ever one at a time…" She broke her gaze to look at the brunette; startled to find that the blank stare had cleared and the other girl was now looking intently at her, "a new girl would be Called when her predecessor died." Buffy watched a flash of pain and understanding cross dark eyes, "But we… changed that."

"So do you… get the memories of the previous Slayers with the powers or something? That's how you know me?"

"Sort of… well not really. It's…"

"Complicated, sure." Amanda finished for her, biting out the bitter words before finishing her drink.

Carefully selecting her words, eyes only on her long lost friend Buffy tried to explain, "Slayers do inherit something from their predecessors, but it's more the skills, and instincts. I was a fifteen year old cheerleader when I was called but after I became a slayer I just knew things I never had before."

She remembered that first rush of battle when confronted with a vampire; she remembered hundreds of them. The fear, the adrenaline rushing through her veins, the desperate urge to flee but something telling her to stay, to fight. "When I got over my fear and let myself act on impulse I could fight, control my new power. It took a lot of training and practice to hone my skills but I know I wouldn't have survived long enough to train if all I had gained when called was increased strength."

Buffy shook her head of the other memories, tried to forget those times when the instincts hadn't been enough. When a girl, lost and alone was found by the creatures she was created to destroy and overcome without a chance to learn how to fight back. The worst were the times when there were others there, when her life faded away leaving behind only the vision of the demons that had defeated her attacking those she had failed to protect. There were too many she hadn't saved.

"What changed?" Joe prompted, not allowing her to fall into the morose thoughts that could so easily follow.

"The girls with the potential to become Slayers were being killed to try and end our line. To stop that we found a way to make them all Slayers." It was more a statement of fact than anything else she had said, her thoughts still stuck in the past, on deaths she had no way of altering.

"How?"

Looking at Duncan, she almost smiled for the first time since the conversation had started, knowing what his reaction would be, "Magic."

All of the others around the table glanced at one another, each daring the others to contest the existence of magic. After the things he'd seen Duncan wasn't entirely sure he could.

Amanda shook off any queries she had about magic and stuck to the point she was most interested in, refusing to allow any of the others to interrupt with their questions, "That doesn't explain how…"

"How I remember you." Amanda's eyes flashed with triumph, it was the most straightforward reference Buffy had made so far to their friendship. "No it doesn't… but… I don't think that would make sense without knowing how it used to be." Buffy paused, gathering her thoughts and words. Her conversation skills were rusty at best after travelling alone for so long, "The spell we used to empower the potentials wasn't stable. Less than an hour after it had been spun, the web collapsed and all that power came back together."

"Into you?"

"Into me."

"That's what made you Immortal?" Joe asked intrigued by the possibility of a new form of the ability he had studied for so long.

"Perhaps. I was told it would make me live longer… I haven't visibly aged since it happened." But then, she thought back to her last brief visit to Cleveland, neither had Faith. Except in losing the fat of youth, gaining muscle as her body reacted to her constant activity, constant training; neither of the slayers had changed in the decade and a half since they had first been called.

"I suppose you're not keen to test the limits" Duncan tried to joke, though the blank expression he received in return quickly shrunk his grin.

_**She shouldn't have allowed them to follow her, but then they hadn't really asked… or hadn't thought to ask. It had been such an ingrained a part of their friendship that there was barely a thought of if or when they might come along._

_But now they trailed after her into the battles she shouldn't be able to win, and she didn't wait or plan. That would require drowning the dual desires burning inside her, one desperate for the kill and the other hoping to be killed. Praying that the words of the Oracles would turn out to be false._

_They fought with a quiet desperation that was oddly remnant of their first few years together, when they had truly been up against the unknown. Before her friends had become as dangerous as most of the things they fought against._

_Somehow she dragged herself out of the haze of battle to realise that they were in trouble. She fought against the rush caused by pain and adrenaline and the urgent need to attack the creatures she could feel all around her._

_They were trapped, lodged in the far back corner of the room with Faith trying to protect them against the onslaught of demons, but there were just too many for one slayer to hold back and Willow was slumped against the wall drained of her power._

_Acting on autopilot, Buffy started to make her way towards them. Throwing the demon approaching her from the left into the mass surrounding her friends gained her just enough time to get close and start hacking. It was sickeningly reassuring to feel her blade cut into bone._

* * *

_Afterwards she started to slip out alone. When the waves of despair threatened to overwhelm her and the loose control she now possessed on the power within slipped. They both thrived on the fight, on any battle where the balance of control was as fine as the edges of the knife's she wielded._

_Fights when she was driven to the edge of her skills, when one person should stumble so far away from their abilities that defeat was inevitable. But there was always another depth to her power that she reached, another level that seemed so unattainable, somehow finding the strength to endure._

_Not the type of struggle to bring company to. Not without dragging them down with her into the pits of her inner conflict._**

After a moment that lasted too long for it to be comfortable Buffy shrugged, they might deserve some of the story, but what had happened since she had taken on the powers and memories of the slayer was more than she was prepared to tell.

"That wasn't all I gained." She focused on Amanda, unsurprised to find brown eyes fixed on her, "I guess I could have started with this… but then I wouldn't have explained how it happened. Past lives shouldn't be less believable than vampires, Demons and Werewolves"

"Werewolves?" Duncan interrupted, only to be silenced by the dual glares of Amanda and Joe, Buffy, having finally reached the reason behind the story she had been forced to weave barely heard him.

"But… somehow they are. When the spell collapsed it destroyed the barriers in… my spirit. Those walls that so many people go to hypnotherapists and shrinks to try and overcome; so that they can look into past incarnations of their soul. It broke them down and I remembered everyone I have ever been, in each lifetime I was called as a slayer."

"Does the potential to be a slayer have something to do with the soul?" Joe asked.

"We didn't know it before, but it seems to."

"And 700 years ago… in your 'past life' you knew Amanda."

"I get why you don't believe me. There are so many things I know to be real which I would doubt without having experienced them myself." She didn't offer them any further reasoning, it was up to them to believe her or not since her story was impossible to prove.

"Come on Mac. You're an immortal, I just told you vampires are real and you can't accept that reincarnation might exist?"

"You're just saying that because you think she's your friend. What proof do we even have that she does remember something that happened 700 years ago?"

"Well…" Buffy met Amanda's gaze with a glint in her eye, reminding the immortal far too clearly of the sense of humour of her friend, how much Alice had enjoyed teasing her about her failures, "I could tell you how when we arrived in Cambridge after two weeks running from…"

"She remembers." Amanda interrupted, giving into the daring stare that told her the girl really would tell them stories until she confirmed their truth. Stories that would only get more embarrassing the longer she took if this girl was anything like Alice.

"But if she's not immortal like us, how can I feel her? I know you can too."

"Cassandra said that… Quickenings?" Buffy asked, looking for confirmation that she had remembered correctly the word used by the woman she had met in the graveyard, "Well she seemed to think they were to do with the life force of an immortal."

"I suppose that's as good an explanation as any" Amanda looked to Duncan for confirmation but he merely shrugged in response; neither of the pair had ever delved into the metaphysics of their condition. Both the type to accept what had happened to them and, for the most part, move on rather than contemplate events.

"After… everything… I have a strong life force, more than normal people, so you can feel it. She was pretty sure that a slayer couldn't become one of you though." It had never been made clear how she had known about Slayers, or where this assumption that they couldn't be Immortal came from, Buffy could only trust in the surety Cassandra had in what she was saying.

Duncan nodded in agreement, unwilling to contradict someone who had always seemed to know so much when it came to something about which he knew nothing.

"How was she?"

"Other than just having died?" Buffy attempted to joke, the slight smile fading when she saw the flash of anger and fear in Duncan's eyes, "She seemed fine, from what she said, her friends in Rome didn't know about…" she gestured between the two immortals, "so she'd probably settled somewhere else by now." Shrugging she attempted to reassure him, "She didn't seem worried."

Duncan smiled with that faraway look that all of the ancient beings she'd met seemed to have, something in the eyes giving away the fact that whatever they were internally reminiscing about, happened far more than a lifetime ago. Whenever Angel or Spike had taken it on there had been an edge of guilt to the expression, and never a smile. Buffy had always found it reminded her of just how short her lifespan was expected to be… she wondered momentarily whether she now had a similar look of her own.

"I'll do it." He stated, shaking all at the table out of their thoughts.

"Huh?" She seemed to have lost track of the conversation somewhere in the midst of her reflections.

"I'll train you."

_**A/N:**- The section which follows 'Rules' is an interlude in the Choosing 'verse that fits in between this chapter of 'Choices' and the next. It is not necessary to read Rules to understand the rest of this story so please skip past to Choices VI if you prefer._


	21. Interlude RULES I Game Play

_**A/N: **This is an interlude of sorts in the Choosing 'verse set between chapters V and VI of Choices. I say of sorts because it is both more and less substantial than Bound or Envy and less directly relevant - it does not further Buffy's story in the way they do, instead the Choices parts are a framework from which flashbacks to the history of Immortals and their Game are hung. This framework is however, a less abstract scene than those depicted in previous interludes._

_I have reloaded all previous chapters with some updates so a re-read might be useful and, because I have, as ever, been remiss at updating here, you get the entirety of this four part interlude and the following chapter all at once. Aren't you lucky? If you have any comments feel free to give them to me as you read, reviews are truly marvellous things. On that note, thank you to those who have reviewed over my absence. When I leave such long gaps I'm never certain if I should still respond when I post... I dont want people to feel I'm spamming them, but I do treasure every comment I get._

**Rules**

_Can you play a game without knowing its rules?_

* * *

_**Game Play**_

Buffy wasn't sure how this would help. Sure Duncan was nice and well meaning; but his fixation on her ability to fight was unnerving. It wasn't going to teach her what she had come here to learn.

"You might not be a part of the game but that doesn't mean that all will believe it. Like it or not, you feel like one of us, and that means that others of our kind will come after you, will expect you to play by our rules."

"What does it matter? If an Immortal attacks me, I'll just kill them and run away." It almost seemed pointless to make this argument; she could see that this man didn't believe her capable of much.

Duncan bit back questions about her fighting skills, hardening his expression and returning to his original lesson, "The rules are there for a reason, and there are stories of dire consequences to them being broken."

"What sort of consequences?"

He smiled, for the first time in any of their conversations the girl seemed to be taking a real interest, "Well I heard once that one was broken in Pompeii around AD 79"

"Pompeii?" her brow creased, thoughts travelling back, remembering something long ago, "But that was…" She stopped, with his reaction to vampires, Buffy wasn't sure that bringing up Hellmouths and the results of closing them was the best idea, "Never mind… so, these rules."

_The quickening flowed down the blade and into the wound causing more pain than any wound a mortal could inflict. These powers that dwelled within endlessly seeking one another out, one life force reaching for the other. As is their nature, to combine, to be one._

_With his bloodied blade the old man deflected a blow from the other Immortal even as his wounded foe fell back. She was trying to manoeuvre him around, trying to force him to bare his back to the boy but he evaded her blows, moved her instead so that she was between him and her companion._

_He was by far the superior swordsman, either of these children would have been defeated alone by now, and that was why they were attacking together after all. Combining each of their hundred odd years of experience to combat his thousands. The most annoying part of this venture was that it was working. That between the pair of them they were slowly witling him down._

_One always managed to be there when the other began to falter, and despite the numerous nicks they'd managed to inflict, the stab to the boy's gut was the first time he had managed to damage them in retaliation. He parried without thought, bringing his sword up to block her attack and wincing as it pulled a cut over his ribs, stumbling back._

_She fell for it, lunging in for the kill without properly guarding herself, ending up skewered on his blade, gasping for breath as it passed up through her lung and into the heart. The still warm blood of the boy mixed with that of the girl, blending some trace of each of their quickenings with his._

_It hurt._

_Not that pleasure-pain that normally followed the blending of immortal life forces._

_This was pure agony. The fire of three distinct lives flowing through him, through each of them from that point where their powers met. He withdrew his sword from the girl but it didn't rid any of them of the echoes of pain._

_It lessened as he dragged himself away but they still burnt through him, both those powers in his blood fighting his own. When he was far enough from them that he could stand he looked back, at where the boy had pulled himself to his companion's side, waiting for her body to rejuvenate._

_He should kill them. He should stop their cowardly antics forever but then, as the boy's terrified gaze met his, the old man knew that alive or dead none of them would let this happen again._

_**All fights must be one-on-one**_


	22. Interlude RULES II Game Preparation

_**Game Preparation**_

"All fights must be one-on-one."

"You just have to fight fair then?" Buffy asked her lips twitching into a decidedly wicked smirk, "That's no fun, can I at least play with them first?"

Duncan frowned, "It depends on your definition of fair, many would say that in an honourable fight you should only use your blade, while others teach students to take any advantage available, to use hidden weapons and trick moves, deception and mind games."

"You disapprove of that?"

"When your head's on the line you take any advantage available." He shrugged, not liking the truth behind his words. "It means only what it says, that no other Immortal can interfere in a fight."

"So even the… even the guys that run about" having failed to find the word, Buffy made a slicing motion across her throat, "even they fight alone?"

"Yes, for the most part. There are always exceptions, like those who coerce mortals into the fight. It's best to always be prepared, even in places that should be a sanctuary." There was a bitter weariness in his voice that spoke of the endless caution necessary in a life where your enemies could get at you anywhere, anytime. Where even safe houses were suspect.

_Would she have to always watch out for this new foe?_

"Sanctuary? Cassandra said something about not fighting in the graveyard-"

_The fight hadn't started on land that anyone living nearby remembered as being a place of worship, the Gods that had been honoured here long forgotten, but the land remembered. It remembered hundreds of years of belief feeding into this earth, into the now rotten logs that had once given structure to this space._

_Even then, even without the rule they would have stopped had they known. There were lines you didn't cross, written in the soul. It never bode well to aggravate the Gods. You never knew which of them might retaliate._

_But this pair didn't know the significance of the land on which they fought, didn't understand the twinge of pain that accompanied their quickening's path down their blades, and so the battle continued._

_She flitted back and forth about the glade, dancing in and out as the huge man lumbered to keep up, swinging his heavy axe to deflect her short blade._

_With her quick attacks it was the woman that drew the first blood, cutting into his calf before he could bring his axe to block the blow. Moments later the blow that came in retaliation hit her across the jaw. She was knocked back, stunned for a moment by the force and retreated further once she had regained her balance, expecting to find him pressing the advantage._

_She tried to look up but it was hard to move her head, it ached with more pain than a cut, he must have managed to crack a cheekbone. Even then it shouldn't hurt like this. She should be feeling the comforting tingle of electricity as the quickening worked it's magic. Instead it was as if something was weighing down on her at the point of injury._

_This wasn't the normal sensation of interacting quickenings. This was something more. Something worse. Something completely different._

_It was the opposite of receiving a quickening, this heavy liquid force that focussed on the one point where their blood met the air, met the belief that still hung heavy about them. It got inside them, relaying it's warning. The quickening tried to overcome this thing, to heal her wound, but only sparked new pain. It's energy flowing out into the air and through the liquid faith into the ground. The soil shifted beneath her feet._

_It was then that she began to understand, that she saw the old shapes in the overgrown glade. She tried to get up, out, away. Not from her opponent but from the air in the sacred space that felt like water about her, thick and devoid of the oxygen she was suddenly gasping for. Not seeing the glint in her opponent's eyes at her frantic retreat._

_The titan of a man was too young to recognise what this place was, had been. He dragged himself to his feet, somehow ignoring the pain that had to be radiating from his wound. With the injured leg dragging behind him and face contorted in agony he lunged at her, determined to continue. To take her head._

_She parried the attack instinctively and felt the earth itself shake in warning when his cut pulled and he fell to the ground, telling them again that this is no place to fight._

_That the Gods were angry. That they didn't appreciate the disruption of their peace._

_**Never fight on Holy Ground**_


	23. Interlude RULES III Game Objective

_**Game Objective**_

"We never fight on holy ground."

"Is that because of the right of asylum in churches, not breaking taboo?" Thinking back, holy grounds of almost all religions had always been places of peace, that even those with other Gods avoided conflict on sacred grounds. Only true barbarians or fervent believers in an opposing God would dare to desecrate a sacred place.

It made you wonder how vampires came to be so at home in graveyards. Holy grounds meant to protect the dead for some reason welcoming demonically animated corpses. Perhaps it wasn't so strange after all.

"No, the rule came long before the English law. From what I've heard it outdates the Catholic Church in all its guises, and it isn't just their holy grounds but all that we are forbidden from fighting upon."

Buffy wasn't really listening to his response, too caught up in her own musings, but one part caught her attention, "You don't know where the rule came from then?"

"No one knows the origins of the rules." He was trying, but Duncan was too practical to pull off the mystic stranger routine that Cassandra had done so well. She could get away with speaking of ancient rites and forgotten knowledge. Looking into the depths of her eyes as she thought back to past millennia, there was a sense of certainty, of a hidden reason behind her words, actions that Duncan was too young to give.

"Why follow them?"

He shrugged, uncomfortable with her scrutiny and the timelessness that had begun to enter the eyes that held him fixed, "They are the rules."

She wondered if _this_was to do with religion, with growing up surrounded by arbitrary rules that you were never allowed to question. To a degree he had adapted to the changes over the centuries but he was still constrained by the morals, by the way of life he grew up in.

Buffy could remember countless lives where the same was true for her, where she was then Chosen and told to obey a new set of rules. But she also had the memories of her current body and, strangest of all in so many ways, of growing up as a part of her mother's generation where everyone was questioning social norms. Of dying before she got a chance to use that sense of rebellion against the Watchers.

And back, back further than even most immortals could, she remembered times where questioning everything was the only way to survive. When the only rule was the one she had once teasingly related to Faith, and not dying was no joke.

"The other rules give boundaries, tell us how and where to fight, but really there is only one that matters." Duncan's words unknowingly echoed her thoughts.

_The symbol was carved into a rock older than either of those present, older than the oldest of them. Too often the petty squabbles of the mortals had spilt over into the immortal realm, losing the world for all time the knowledge of tribes that perished. What were they for, after all, if not to ensure that the whispers of those long dead might stay on in the ever living._

_"This stands for Immortals, right?" the younger of the two, the student asked._

_"Yes, immortality within unity under time." The teacher traced the symbols as he named them, marvelling at how the long forgotten carver had interlaced the three._

_"So… 'At the end of time', um… 'All Immortals will unite'?"_

_"Perhaps, it depends how it was written, the order in which the symbols were carved."_

_He looked again at the symbol, immortality not only within but also itself a part of, encircling unity. His fingers followed the loops in their pattern as they danced over stone. Finding comfort in the knowledge that these, at least would not be forgotten._

_In many ways that is the end. The beginning of the Game, but the tale of that sage and his symbol is not complete without another end. Another beginning._

_Centuries later the fertile lands about the stone had left, moved by the shifting land that took the water from the well and the village of mortals who had lived and died here, whose ancestors had erected these stones, with them._

_He could feel the man coming, running across the sands towards him but he didn't turn, didn't stop. The man who had once been a teacher, a scholar, took up his sword and attacked the rock._

_He hadn't meant for this, had only intended to spread understanding, knowledge that might otherwise be lost forever. This was the purpose of Immortals, or so his teacher had told him. Oh how he wished that they had descended into oblivion. That he had been taken sooner._

_It was done, before his opponent reached the circle, the fractured remains of the rock showed no more sign of the markings that had changed so much. That had given those who revelled in the feel of another's Quickening a reason to take it, squabbles no longer settled in honourable combat to the death but in fights for a head, for another's power._

_He had killed the symbol whose original meaning none would ever learn. Whatever it had once been was now gone, irrevocably changed into something else. He killed the symbol, not knowing that the meaning given to it would live forever. That this, of all the wisdom he had sought to preserve, would be his legacy._

_The man, the linguist, historian before there was a word that meant such a thing turned away from his final task, his gift of destruction, and for the first time in decades hope surged through him. Hope that the deaths might finally end._

_Their swords met at the edge of the circle. The old scholar knew that his dulled blade wouldn't now manage to cut into skin, not that it mattered. He wasn't a swordsman, even when the deaths of his kind had begun in earnest he had not bothered to pick up the skill. Hadn't believed that it would be necessary._

_He managed to hit his opponent once, his blade only bruising the man's arm, and received a deep cut to his thigh in retaliation. The subsequent attack knocked the useless sword out of his hands and the grin on the other man's face only confirmed what he already knew. That this was the end._

_"Why? You don't need to do this." He backed up, limping to avoid pressure on his injured leg, until his back hit one of the outer stones, and there he was trapped, between a literal rock and the hard gaze of his opponent._

_"You know why."_

_"It's not…" his arguments were cut off by the singing of the bronze blade as it swept through the air towards his throat._

_**In the end, there can be only one.**_


	24. Interlude RULES IV Game Incentive

**_Game Incentive_**

"In the end, there can be only one."

"And because of that Immortals fight each other, take each other's heads."

"Yes."

_To him it was as simple as that._

"But…you all kill each other because of a rule that no one knows the origin of." She couldn't fathom why they perpetuated this madness; why in this age a sensible man taught that the only way to live was by the deaths of others.

"You don't understand. You haven't taken a quickening yet."

"Yet?" Buffy scoffed, "I don't plan to."

"You will." This time she didn't, couldn't question Duncan's statement. His voice contained the weariness of hard won certainty; a bitter knowledge borne of experience that taught him once an opponent came for your head simply killing them would never be enough. Every Immortal eventually bowed to the way of the world, lived by these rules and those who didn't ended up dying by them.

There were more rules, rules of honour and conduct, rules that could and had been broken over and over but these three were the ones that stood central to their existence, followed more closely than any commandments. No exceptions allowed. These were the rules that every Immortal believed in, could feel in their blood, in their quickening.

"I…I just can't understand why. You've told me that there are always new Immortals coming. You can't really believe that there'll be a final contest and the one left will rule the world." It was as pointless as her belief that she might be rewarded for her efforts on earth.

She couldn't stay here, didn't want to hear him rationalise away the tenants he had lived by for so long. Couldn't hear arguments she had made herself in so many lives repeated back to her. This couldn't be for nothing, there had to be purpose within the chaos of their lives.

Buffy walked away from Duncan while he was still searching for a response.

_The idea of a prize came later than the rules of the game, much later when those who had taken many heads discovered the power granted by the combined Quickenings. That gaining energy from others didn't just make you heal even more quickly; eventually it would make you stronger, faster. That with enough you might truly become a God._

_Or perhaps it was the thing that prompted this interpretation of the symbol, the love of the quickening, of the power that made that version and its meaning so rapidly accepted. The other rules originate from the quickening so why not the central one, why not this._

_So long ago that there are none left to remember it, there had been no way to take a quickening. They had no weapons which could easily decapitate an enemy so why would one attempt it? Why take the head from a man when nothing you knew seemed to stop them?_

_Eventually it was discovered how to kill these gods who dwell among us, the ever living, although how this happened is not remembered. And since it was only right to pit gods against one another, to ask your protector to battle those of your enemies, the quickening was discovered soon after. Its power, a destructive force as strong as anything nature could produce, only confirmed that these beings that looked like men were more than the mortals they lived among._

_You could call that first quickening the origin of the prize; when that mixture of pleasure, pain and most importantly power was felt for the first time. When a god fell to his knees with the force of its impact, surrounded by the bodies of his subjects that had been caught too close._

_Nothing was ever quite the same again. Because what you feel as the quickening engulfs you cannot help but be right. Suddenly you are revitalised, full of life, of power. And it is so easy to come to crave it._

_**~ Fin ~**_

**A/N:** I hope you've enjoyed reading these looks into the history of Immortals as much as I did writing them. My apologies if anything I've written contradicts the Highlander series. I didn't mean to (and actively tried to avoid it), but it has been a while since I saw them all. We now return to our scheduled programming.


	25. CHOICES VI Theatre in Silhouette

_**Theatre in Silhouette**_

Amanda watched as her companion wove between the rows of racks with intent, following a seemingly arbitrary path as she picked up a top here, a skirt there. The chaotic movements slowly making sense as various outfits emerged from the bundle of clothing Buffy was amassing. Noting her perusal, Buffy glanced up at her with a grin, hefting the garments as proof that she was fulfilling her task.

It was odd, seeing this girl flow between all the different façades she created. Apparently the bubbly Californian teen, such a well-perfected persona that it couldn't be anything but an act, was an enthusiastic shopper.

That was perhaps a bit harsh, this front might just an approximation to the person she had been in this life before becoming a Slayer. Buffy had mentioned that she'd been a cheerleader after all and her barely disguised distain of the girl she had once been implied a level of cluelessness. Somehow Amanda couldn't imagine any incarnation of this woman being quite as thoughtless as she made herself out to be.

The reasons behind this venture sprung to mind, bearing stark contrast to the image Buffy was now portraying. The supple leather trousers and jacket Buffy had worn when they met seemed uniquely styled with a mesh of thick stitching using dark leather cords crisscrossing randomly over the tailored garments. Subtle variations in colour and texture giving an impression of the shabby-chic designs that were oh-so in fashion.

After learning that the girl's wardrobe was limited to that she wore and the few supplies kept in the small satchel she carried with her, Amanda had decided to force her old friend out shopping. But when she realised what the clothes Buffy wore were…what they meant, it became a priority.

It was only after putting together the lifestyle Buffy led and the ragged mismatched nature of the numerous tears that Amanda understood what each of those carefully stitched rips had been. Even knowing it was difficult to reconcile with the part she played. How someone who had experienced the injuries that went along with the shredded clothes could act like nothing mattered more than whether or not the shop had red boots in her size or not escaped Amanda. She would laugh, joke, and then look up at you with empty eyes, two reminders that it was the person those clothes belonged to who was real.

Amanda had acted for so long like life was a game, as if any obstacles or traces of danger were just another thing to laugh off or enjoy. Eventually the act is all you have, all you are. It was hard to believe that it was this person who had taught her to live like that, to love life so fiercely, to thrive in every second of existence.

And on occasion, it was difficult to remember that she wasn't.

_**She hadn't noticed when the clothing was delivered, a mix of colours in the tailor's arms. It was only later that she realised there were more than the two sets of clothes they had planned being bought. Alice had so cleverly blended them that the distinction was barely noticeable, a dark shirt hidden amongst the white, a grey doublet between bright colours._

_Only after Amanda found out what her friend really was, what made her strong and fast, did she found out what those clothes were for. On that night she had seen for the first time all those pieces, fragments of the costume worn together, no longer enriched by any colours but clothed entirely in dark shades of green, grey and blue. Clothing that made her a part of the shadows even as they walked down the main street laughing._

_After that Alice taught her. Not how to battle the creatures they both sought; there was something thrilling about Alice's trust in her, that her skill with a sword had never been doubted. Instead she taught her how to do more than just blend together, to better play at being siblings. She taught her how to blend into shadows. Showing her how this was the same as their other act, all about the subtle differences that made you indistinguishable._

_The ruse worked best when they highlighted that they were not the same. As brother and sister the differing clothing, the perceived difference in sexes hid physical dissimilarities that should have betrayed their lie: the slight tinge of colour of Alice's that stood against her pale complexion, the clear blue eyes which so contrasted her brown. And yet when they both wore doublets and hose it was these small things that were noticed. That had others questioning their story._

_They bulked out Alice's body, adding layers of bandages beneath the shirt to give an impression of strength; wore colours that brought out Alice's icy gaze and lit a fire in her own. Suddenly with those differences weren't what was noted. Instead it was the way those two heads bowed together, dark hair blending so that the pair were almost one. The fluid grace they shared, movements forever changed by lives in combat, so alike that they were taken to be twins._

_When hunting they more often went as men, with their breasts bound tight and fine blades attached to their hips. Their shared bounty giving them ample reasons to be armed, the stolen seal of this Lord, the mark of that Baron's favour. And at night they forwent the joyful colours of the day for those that would conceal their presence.**_

They were here in Buffy's arms; cleverly intermingled amongst those chosen to portray an image of innocence were the still stylish but more functional ones in darker shades. Clothing that could make her a shadow which would be worn to hunt.

Amanda hadn't forgotten her training. She used it too often to do so. That blending in wasn't about appearing to be all black as one might imagine. There is never any shadow that contains only darkness. It's not just the shadows that you need to become a part of but the light as well, especially since bright lamps replaced flickering torches. How you shouldn't try to hide your movement, you can't help but breathe, but instead make your motion a part of the background, of the constant sway of the world.

These colours, these motions; they were as much a part of Buffy as they had been Alice, and Amanda had worked for centuries to make them her own.

With all those similarities Amanda kept finding herself forgetting, believing the character the slayer was currently portraying. Speaking as if the approximation of the person she once knew really was Alice, watching Mac and Joe treat her like the angst ridden American teen she fell back into when Amanda's attention wasn't on her. But then she would glance at her when Buffy was unaware of any scrutiny and see the shell of a person, just going through the motions of existing.

She was disturbingly good at noticing when she was being observed, at slipping on those masks without missing a step, a beat. But Amanda hadn't lived 1000 years for nothing. Amanda knew how to look without looking, how to case a joint without raising suspicion, and even if Buffy did seem to have some sort of supernatural awareness, Amanda still caught her; caught those seconds before she was detected.

In those moments she was entirely Buffy, not anyone she knew or had ever known. Alice had always been too full of the sheer joy of existence to ever have that look. Even when she was down there had been too much life, too much energy in her to seem empty. Those moments, the ones when there was nothing in this fragile girl, they hurt more than the ones when she was in every discernible characteristic her friend. Because trying to reconcile a broken shell with the woman she loved was impossible, and Amanda hated knowing what she had become, how easily that life had drained away.

"Earth to Mata."

She somehow managed to smile down at those eyes, making note of the lessened bundle in Buffy's arms, "You're done?"

Together they made their way towards the tills, and as Buffy's purchases were rung up Amanda sorted through her wallet for a credit card.

"I can…" Buffy tried to resist but Amanda batted away her attempts to pay.

"Nah, let me… or, rather," she grinned with a hint of mischief in her eyes, "Mac."

The peal of laughter, real or not was worth all the aggravation she'd get from Duncan later about this. "He's known you for how long, and still lets you pick his pocket?"

Amanda shrugged, handing the card over to the shop assistant who was apparently ignoring their quiet discussion of theft. "He might have let me take it to make sure I'd come. For all his honesty that man is annoyingly cunning at times."

"Ah, yes, the Immortal babysitter." Buffy teased in a sing song voice. "I'm surprised he didn't do it himself"

Amanda didn't say why, that he didn't really trust her, either of them. That though he had accepted her as a student, Duncan still needed to trust what he had been told about what she was. The man had always needed proof before he could start to believe, but once he was satisfied he would never falter.

"I bet if we did meet an immortal you'd leave it to me anyway."

Amanda pouted in mock offence, "You'd expect me to fight in my new shoes?" She playfully displayed the earlier purchase.

Buffy scoffed, they both knew Amanda wouldn't wear anything she couldn't fight in, or at the very least run in. "I wouldn't want to be held accountable for a broken heel." She paused, her joking tone disappearing with the smile. "It seems silly. You've told him slayers know how to fight. Why do I need taking care of?"

"I suppose he's spent too much time defending me to have much trust in my sword skills anymore."

"What's with that? I don't remember you ever playing damsel in distress for longer than it took to get back in control."

Why did every mention of their time spent together cause such a strong reaction? She had moved on, accepted what happened, or at least Amanda thought she had. Shrugging away the thought she admitted the reason she would never tell Mac, "It's always worth appearing weak before a strong enemy." Then again there were the other benefits to playing the damsel. A slow smile began to emerge. "And… Well… Mac loves to play the hero. Being rescued by him is always worth it." She winked at Buffy, trying to regain the earlier playful mood but didn't get any response from her friend.

"I'm going to have to fight him, beat him aren't I?"

"Yes." The question was rhetorical, Amanda's answer unnecessary. They both knew what would happen, Buffy's resigned tone proved that, but within that question had been something she was anxious to learn. Buffy was going to have to fight him before he would believe in her abilities and teach her what she needed to learn.

Amanda couldn't help but wonder what that was, why the girl had really come. They both knew she didn't need to be trained in the use of a blade and if Alice was anything to go by, Slayers were as good at hiding, making new identities and lives as any immortal.

It hadn't been her presence that brought Buffy here either. She had been as surprised as Amanda to find a living reminder of their long forgotten existence so it hadn't been her Buffy had sought. Cassandra could never have known about them anyway, regardless of what Duncan believed about her ability to prophesise events.

So what had Buffy come for, what did she hope to learn from Duncan? What could a 400 year old Highlander teach someone who understood every language spoken, intimately knew all martial arts used as well as many lost along with their cultures.


	26. CHOICES VII How to Play the Game

**_A/N:_**_- I've realised some of my formatting may be off as apparently this system doesn't like me having more than one paragraph italicised at a time. I'm going to fix that now. In the mean time, here's more..._

**_How to Play the Game_**

When Duncan had challenged her to this fight, Buffy's initial impulse had been to overwhelm him. She could easily best any human with her enhanced strength, and for all intents and purposes, that's what Duncan was. He might find it a lot easier to bounce back than mortals would, but his longevity didn't come alongside the increased speed or strength of her natural foes.

If she did that, defeated him using brute strength and lightning reflexes what would it prove? Although Duncan claimed to merely want reassurance that she could best any headhunter who might mistake her for his kind and try to take her false quickening, she knew that he wouldn't be satisfied by a demonstration of power. The Immortals lived their lives by a game of skill and honour, evident in the fact that their primary weapons were still blades; they didn't take the easy route provided by modern firepower.

So she treated the test of skill for what it was, and attempted to dampen down the flows of energy that surged through her to pump power into every cell. Buffy had sparred with Faith a number of times since that first bloody fight in the basement of the Hyperion and had learnt how to keep her powers to a minimum so that she wouldn't unnecessarily injure her friend. The mental requirements of constantly suppressing her strength distracted her enough to lower the speed of her reactions down to something vaguely normal.

Normal for a Slayer anyway.

She missed those fights, more an exercise in trust and skill than the proof of superiority they could have become. Perhaps she might be able to have something like that again here.

They faced one another; bowing, readying their blades and circling, watching each other's steps, assessing their capabilities. Moving and then pausing. A careful observation of every minute detail of the other's reactions, their posture and footwork, the flow of their dance.

Then in a sudden flurry of motion the test began in earnest. Their swords clashing together, bodies in constant movement as each maintained their centre of gravity and sought to disrupt that of their opponent.

As he tested out her skill with a sword she realised that if she had still been just Buffy her superior strength wouldn't have been enough. Here was a man with the skill born of centuries of practice, repeating katas until his entire body had been honed into a weapon. He used her strength as a boon, surprised by it but not so much that he didn't use his knowledge to slide around it and turn it back against her.

She might not have beaten him before, even with the training she had done with blades. Buffy had never had the time to truly devote herself to a type of combat that by its nature was impractical to modern life. Slayers were no longer able to disguise themselves as youths with a sword openly displayed on their belts as they once had. She had needed to hide whatever weaponry she carried on all but a few occasions, discouraging any regular use of something so difficult to conceal.

_I wonder if they'll show me how to do that._

Immortals carried swords on themselves at all times, proved by the rapier that Amanda had put aside on entering the apartment, drawing it from somewhere beneath her form fitting clothes. That skill would be useful to gain, learn to hide more weapons discretely about her person. Without such tricks in Sunnydale, she had never got into the habit of using a sword. And so when Giles trained her in swordsmanship, she had picked up the basics as quickly as she had every weapon but she hadn't become proficient, had never made a sword an extension of her body.

And that should have been her downfall.

Unfortunately for Duncan, she wasn't just Buffy anymore. She was the Chosen One with all the knowledge that came with it. Where he had centuries of practice to call upon, she had millennia. He might have trained his body to do what was needed to win, but over the centuries her very soul had absorbed more stances and fighting styles than he could hope to learn in another 400 years.

The only difference being that his mere presence before her meant that he had survived. His own desire to live was strong enough that it had overcome anything he faced. Beaten, according to Amanda, others with centuries more years to their name.

Buffy may not be used to it, may not expect it, but within her were the memories of all those failures; reminding her that she wasn't always the best, hadn't always won the fights.

_**He had been a decent swordsman in life and death had done nothing to remove that knowledge, using the century that had passed since then to hone his skills. Even once he fought his way to the top he didn't let them stagnate, controlling those beneath him with a sharpened sword._

_Her own blades danced in her hands, more than tools, weapons. The pair of swords that she had been given the day she was found. That none other would wield. No other could. The metal moulded to fit in only her grasp, their weight something no one else could bare._

_She had been winning against his men, shimmering silver flashes of death spinning around her as her blades moved with deadly intent, blood and dust flying in every direction. She had been winning until he joined the fray._

_One-on-one she would have been hard pressed to beat him but now, with half a dozen of his men attacking whenever she was forced to give an opening she didn't have a chance.**_

It was fun to test her skill, every time he dug deeper, pushed her further it sparked something in her, the memory of the correct riposte came to her even as she was moving, her body reacting before her mind had time to think, to remember. He was disarmed again, for the second time so far; the more desperate his attacks became the more unforgiving a retaliation they demanded.

This time when he was disarmed she didn't pause and give him a chance to recover. Buffy was beginning to bore of this fight, but before she could reach him he dove over the weights bench, giving himself the respite needed to retrieve his blade.

He certainly was persistent; refusing to submit even as he reached the realisation that defeat was inevitable. Buffy wondered what he would make of Faith, of her equally relentless need to win.

Of the two slayers before the fall of Sunnydale, Faith was by far the more skilled with a sword, her fascination with all and any blades giving her a dedication to training that she so often lacked. Ironically this love that had caused so much of her trouble, was a skill she honed while in the care of the state, the discipline involved in instruction in fencing apparently considered an asset.

With their differing gifts would Faith defeat this man or would his skill with a blade have driven them to an impasse? Either way the fight would be bitter and long, each using the full extent of their abilities in pursuit of victory.

_**The foils crashed into one another, she was using neat economical movements to parry each attack, staying in close to her opponent so as to be squander as little energy as possible. Saving that for when she would most need it._

_She spotted an opening and lunged forward, the thin blades smashing against one another as she put all her might into driving him..._

_"Stop" he called, pulling off his helmet to reveal the frown marring his chiseled features, "You know this is not an exercise of strength Clarissa."_

_"Yes, I'm sorry sir."_

_He stared at her, judging the truth of her contrition, "Remember that here the objective is to perfect your form, your true enemy will not be bested by strength alone."_

_She nodded, not willing to let her voice betray how much she hated disappointing this man, her watcher._

_"Right, lets start again shall we?" He shot her a slight smile as he donned his helmet, letting her know she was forgiven, "En guarde!"**_

As they met once again, swords clashing together, Duncan's attacks became more reckless. He had long realised that his dismissal of all claims regarding Buffy's abilities had been in error and was quickly reaching the realisation that she wasn't just good. She was better than him, a more knowledgeable swordsman than any of his most skilled opponents. That was without taking into account a power in her swing which left his bones aching with every impact and a speed of movement that defied belief.

Buffy danced through styles he knew and those he had never seen, countering his moves with parries that left him stumbling back in a desperate attempt to regain his footing. Occasionally Duncan returned the favour, using every trick in his repertoire to weaken her guard, feeling a surge of pride whenever he made her miss a step.

Each time that happened he pushed forward, hoping to catch her off balance, to finally take control of the fight. With every ounce of his attention was on her body, watching her movements so as not to miss any betrayal they might give of her coming actions, he missed the change in her expression. Duncan didn't see the enthusiasm for the fight dim as her and a sense of purpose take its place.

She'd had her fun, now it was time to demonstrate once and for all that it wasn't swordsmanship she hoped to learn from him.

* * *

They were back in his home before Duncan made any comment on the fight, "I don't understand."

"Why she sent me here? Me either." Buffy flashed a smile at Amanda before she could take any offence, "Not that I'm not glad she did." And she really was glad that she had met the woman again. She had changed, they both had, that was as inevitable as the passing of time, but the fragile beginnings of camaraderie between them was something that felt more real, safe than anything had in her last years in Sunnydale. Amanda wasn't perfect, but she didn't claim to be and didn't expect anyone else to be either.

"What did she say?"

Buffy thought back to that conversation, to when it had changed. "She was putting on a bit of a cryptic all knowing routine, telling me off and I got… annoyed. I told her that I had been fighting for longer than she could imagine. That I exist for… to cause only death and destruction. That I watched the world fall apart."

_It had collapsed so many times around her._

She had seen the end of the world too often in those early years; when the whole of so many mortal's existence was in a single valley, island or oasis and it was all too easy for an apocalypse to wipe out every trace of those worlds. When total destruction could come thundering from nowhere, from the sea, past the ridge, over a dune, from places so close and yet too distant to imagine.

"I should have known." He said in a resigned tone.

"What?" Again mentioning death had gotten an almost violent reaction from an Immortal, but she didn't understand what this all meant.

"Cassandra wasn't sending you to Duncan" Amanda said, the answer to her earlier question suddenly clear.

Buffy looked between the two of them, hoping one of the two would get to the point before she got too annoyed at all the cryptic to-and-froing.

"She was sending you to Death." Duncan stated, his voice oddly even.

~ To Be Continued... ~

_**A/N:**__- Please let me know any thoughts/comments you have on this._


	27. CHOICES VIII By Any Other Name

_****__A/N:__- Thank you to those who have reviewed - Kirsche Cheise, Iocosa and Dreameralways. As ever, I am deeply grateful for any support this story gets. And yes... of course it was always meant to be Methos. I don't believe for a moment that I convinced you guys otherwise.  
_

**_By Any Other Name_**

"Buffy!" The cry came as soon as she entered through the door, "I've found it!"

Buffy raised her eyebrow at Joe's exclamation, uncertain how to react to the bartender's enthusiasm, hating the wave of fear that settled in her belly.

Finding out what he really did had shattered Buffy's easy acceptance of the trust both Duncan and Amanda showed him. She could understand the reasoning behind recording the exploits of Immortals, of keeping an account of their impact on history. It was much the same as the diaries another group of watchers had kept of Slayers for centuries. But then, in so many ways, it was completely different.

At least, for all the troubles the watchers had caused slayers over the years, they had been open, given aid, hadn't merely hidden in shadows as young girls died. There was something less easy to accept about people who deliberately thwarted the privacy of others without the offer of anything in return. Even their claims that it was necessary for them be silent, to avoid any interference in the lives of those they monitored seemed to be just another deception. Too many of Joe's recent tales involved rogue agents or disclosed secrets.

The conversations about Death, the immortal named Methos, which had followed her first fight against Duncan, had done nothing to ease her worries.

What would happen if she ever betrayed his sense of morality, or if another man rose within their elusive organisation and decided that whatever she was, it could be far more dangerous to humanity than any Immortal. Would she find that those who claimed to only watch were now hunting her down?

It wouldn't be the first time.

Buffy and Joe had settled into something like an uneasy truce over her time with them, but she couldn't bring herself to trust him. That was okay; these people understood that trust was something that took time.

What it was that Joe had found was apparent when she reached the table about which both he and Duncan were seated. A file was spread before them, complete with a series of photos dating from the last hundred years or so judging by the changing attire of the person depicted in each shot. The face in the photos was all too familiar to Buffy, that of a man whose death she had caused.

It had been years since she thought about that night, another meaningless death in a life holding thousands. There had been others. Those who mistook her for one of the things she fought, or merely feared the power a Slayer held, but the worst to recall were those who followed demons to their doom.

_**They were so young._

_Their youth was what stuck with her, though many of his followers were far older than her. Perhaps youth was not the right word; naivety maybe or innocence, both traits she had long lost._

_Whatever you called it, their would look up at her, wide eyed and blameless, as they threw themselves upon her blade. Not understanding the creature which they chose to call master, that he would suck that youth, that innocence out of them until all that remained was an empty husk. A husk he filled with his own power, made into a golem of flesh and sent them out to procure more prey._

_He had to be stopped, prevented from doing this to more, to these men and women who were willing to devote their lives to this thing not understanding that it was that very life force he wanted from them. In order to destroy him she had to remove all obstacles from her path, fight her way through those whose only sin was to believe, to fail to see the horror. The slayer wept as she carried out her duty, regretting the necessity of every death._

_She finally opened a path to his temple and ran into that ugly monument to his might; impossible architecture held together by magic. When she struck him down the power which maintained the structure was also snuffed out. The stones began to fall like the start of a rainstorm, one dropped, then two more, and then the building collapsed in a torrent all about her._

_If there had been a means of escape she wouldn't have used it, better to end here than to live with the guilt of what she had done._

_Better to die than remember.**_

Amongst the papers and photos littering the table was one that brought about a resurgence of her fears; a grainy photo of two girls on a bike. Behind it, collected together in the same sheaf of papers, Buffy spotted an image that made her heart freeze.

"They know?" she bit out, the sharpness of her tone alerting the men to her discomfort.

"What..." Joe trailed off following her gaze to the picture that had so terrified her; her driving license complete with photo, "No! They don't know about you... well not really." he admitted sheepishly.

He passed over the part of the file which documented the Immortal's interactions with her, "They traced the license plate of the motorbike to your registration details."

"What about..." Buffy didn't know how well Willow's magic would stand up to intensive scrutiny. If they had found out who Faith was and linked that back to her prison sentence... she would have to go back. To warn them.

_Could she do that? Was she ready?_

"Your friend?" he asked, "Our researchers found records of a tombstone carved for you in 2001 but no death certificate and concluded that you were the Immortal he was hunting, they didn't delve into the identity of your companion when it appeared you had been killed." Joe shrugged, "We only have so many resources."

She breathed a sigh of relief. Eventually she would go back, she knew that, had made a promise and it would be kept. It would be kept, but it needn't be yet and she was glad of that. That she wouldn't be forced into approaching them before she was ready

"What happened?"

Buffy couldn't stop herself glancing at Joe, unable to answer Duncan's question without some reassurance that it would go no further than the three of them.

"Don't worry, according to the Watchers, Buffy Summers became Immortal in 2001 by unknown means and remained living with her family until 2004 when Terrance Blythe defeated her in Ohio. You will remain a perfectly unassuming Immortal who never broke the decade to them. I'd just like to know for my own interest."

She glanced to Duncan to once again confirm his trustworthiness, "Okay."

Buffy looked again at the photo of her and Faith on their bike and felt a wave of nostalgia, of longing for those simple weeks when she and Faith had ignored the world, doing only what suited them. What suited a pair of Slayers being, more often than not, hunting, slaying. It had been too long since she had last had the chance to give into that primal desire.

"We were heard the sound of a sword fight, but by the time we got there a man was dead, beheaded and his opponent had fled"

Joe nodded, "Roberto del Sienta."

"Roberto is dead?" Duncan confirmed with surprise.

"I didn't know you'd met."

"We hadn't, but I'd heard of him from... never mind." He caught Buffy's eye sheepishly, "Please continue."

"There's not much to say really. The next day I felt something following me, and when it refused to go we set a trap for him. He knew about Slayers, and that..." she trailed off and glanced guiltily at Joe, "my friend was one but not me. He told us that she shouldn't interfere in the fight and laughed when he realised I didn't have a sword. When he attacked I was aiming just to knock him out but I thought he was a demon of some kind so wasn't pulling my punches and he deflected one into his gut."

Duncan winced at the thought of the power in that blow which she must have given to his unprotected abdomen, "You killed him."

"Yeah, we left him there... we didn't know what he was but I could still sense something - his Quickening. My friend took his sword, it was still one of her favourite weapons the last time I saw her; good balance."

"You didn't know what he was?"

"No."

"But I thought you knew about Immortals from Amanda?" Joe jumped back into the conversation now that his participation was unlikely to silence her.

"I knew what she was, that she couldn't die, but we didn't meet another Immortal while we were together. She never told me about the Game." She shrugged, "To be honest, before I met Cassandra I probably would have guessed at the type of demon Amata had been if reminded of her."

"So if you didn't know what he was, why did you…" he trailed off.

"Why did I fight the man who was following me?" Buffy finished for him, "What would you have had me do? I met a man who wanted to 'take my head' and my every sense told me was not human."

* * *

Duncan drew in a breath like a rattling sigh as they stepped out of the bar, "You're going to have to get new I.D. soon."

"What?" She had seen his disappointment when a quick appraisal of her outfit had revealed no lines of cloth out of place due to a blade and was surprised that the admonishment heralded by his sighs hadn't been about that.

"You look like you're in your late teens, perhaps early twenties but your license puts you in your thirties."

"And the watchers know my name."

"Yes." He agreed with a grimace, however much he wanted to convince her to trust Joe, Duncan knew better than to extend that goodwill to others in his organisation, "If you want to stay dead to them you'll have to change it."

"Like you do?" She teased, well aware from Amanda that Duncan had been a MacLeod for as long as she had known him.

He shrugged, "It's a family name."

"Been in the family for four centuries or so, I know." Buffy laughingly completed his oft spoken response to suggestions that he might need an alias, "What would you suggest I call myself?"

"While you're here it would probably be best to stick to something which could be shortened to 'Buffy'. People about here know you as that."

"Elizabeth... Winter?" She suggested with a teasing smile.

Duncan shrugged, unwilling to rise to her taunting. An alias unrelated to the previous identity wasn't what was needed to stay hidden, whatever Adam might claim. All the name was needed to do was to stop questions being asked, alarms raised, prevent computer searches on known Immortals finding her.

"And where would I obtain this new identity?"

"Amanda would know best. She is usually forced to change her spots far more regularly than I do." He smiled indulgently thinking of the actions which forced her to do just that, "I have alternative persona's pre-prepared for the times they may become-"

Duncan broke off when Buffy put her hand on his arm, her body tense, senses searching for something mere sight wouldn't find. He too reached out, trying to find what she had felt but there was nothing, nothing but Buffy's quickening which for some reason was making him want to run, telling him not to trust his new friend, warning him of a danger he usually only felt when Methos was near.

"You wanted proof that vampires exist, right?"

He looked at her sharply, "Yes… why?"

"There's a group about two blocks back." She cocked her head to the side; feeling, thinking, "Some of them have cut ahead to corner us."

He glanced behind them, seeing noone else on the gloomy backstreet, "How do you know?"

"The same way they found me, the same reason you can feel the presence your own kind; all animals learn to sense their predators and prey." Buffy pulled him onwards, trying to maintain a pretence that they were unaware of those stalking them.

"And which are we?"

"Depends how you look at it" with a wink and a flick of the wrist to toss a wooden stake across to him which Duncan caught with instincts caused by centuries of martial arts training, "They're nearly on us, do you remember…"

"In the heart."

"That's… that is so completely right!" Buffy stumbled against him, her motions matching the drunken slur which had appeared in her voice.

A man lunged forwards and she swayed, seemingly unstable, yet managing to evade his attacks, dragging him to one side with a forcefulness that she hid in a stumble when another attacked from their side. He quickly righted himself, gaining stable footing with his back to the wall, facing the melee.

She hadn't yet dropped the drunk act, weaving her way between the five men, these men with faces distorted into unnaturally malicious grimaces, Vampires. Buffy fell into one and dragged him back, throwing him across the street to knock into one that had been edging up on Duncan, drawing him back into the fray surrounding her.

Another attacked and he was ready for him, ready for the clumsy hit but not the force of it which shattered down his arm, or the speed of the next attack. Fighting the vampire was a strange mix of speed and strength without any skill to direct it, power without purpose. Duncan knew how to deflect power, how to use it against itself and did so, letting his opponent's unstable footing be his literal downfall, luring him to attack, overreach. He thrust the stake through his back with surprising ease, the wood treated with holy water burning through flesh and bone.

Buffy, he found when he stood, was still toying with her foes, slipping in between them with a speed that matched if not exceeded their own. She ducked a punch, causing it to land on another vampire, but couldn't evade the attacks of both the third and forth of her opponents. One kick was caught in her hand and the limb pushed away with a force that caused the vampire to fall as a hit landed with sickening strength on her kneecap.

Duncan expected her to drop, to stumble, but any pretence of a disadvantage on her part was now over and she merely twisted into a stable stance for retaliation. Buffy had been holding back in their fight, he realised as she fought, throwing a stocky vampire at the wall near him one handed. She could have defeated him with half the skill she had used, but she hadn't.

"You don't like your present?"

Her words brought him back to the moment, to the vampire she had so kindly gifted him. This one wasn't as strong, not as fast. A youngster perhaps? Buffy had mentioned that vampires gained power as they aged, like immortals, like she had. He had left his stake in the first one and, rather than take a break in his fight against this unknown foe, drew his blade from its hiding place within his long coat. Beheading would work just as well.

"I didn't realise you knew about Slayers, Mac." the voice echoed along the street as his blade sliced through the vampire's neck. When the dust settled Duncan found Adam leaning casually against the wall, watching Buffy as she stopped playing and started dispatching the three vampires still attacking her, "Or that you'd found out about vampires for that matter."

He turned to Duncan and looked him up and down, assessing him with more than just his eyes, "You've been a busy boy, I can feel-" Adam broke off as he moved closer to them, and glanced sharply between Duncan and Buffy, "it's not you..."

"No. It's her."

Adam's face reflected the horror which had been growing within Duncan as he came to understand the true nature of a slayer's abilities, of just what had entered into the game.

~ To Be Continued... ~


	28. CHOICES IX Never Smile at a Slayer

_**A/N:- **__And finally more... sorry for the delay in posting, real life kinda took over for a while there. Thanks to Innogen, Iocosa, onelove5369 and Netchka3 for your reviews, I always love hearing what people think of what I write._

_**Never Smile at a Slayer**_

She knew about him.

They had told her, told this terrifying new creature with the power of demons and life of immortals.

The girl didn't look dangerous, not curled up on the sofa beside Amanda with a wine glass casually held in one hand. She seemed even more harmless than the thief and Amanda oozed a predatory form of sensuality which kept anyone sensible wary. That didn't ease his fears, he was too old to allow mere appearances to deceive him, knew too much about Slayers to doubt the power which dwelt within her slight frame; he had seen it himself.

"We looked for the slayer once." Adam said, his voice calm, hiding his disquiet, "When the rumours of her were spreading faster than those about us. Kronos was jealous."

Buffy looked up at his words, "I remember hearing you were coming... but the tales of the horsemen were about men and there were still all too many demons to worry about."

"You can't be that old." he felt for her quickening, searching for the power which would accompany such memories but finding nothing, "If you were as old as you claim your presence would echo through my head."

Buffy frowned at him, Cassandra had said she felt like a young immortal but Duncan and Amanda didn't seem to think there was anything strange. They felt similar to her, their life forces each a pressure upon her when they approached but this Immortal, his power was a weight like that of the world on her shoulders, an effort to ignore, "You can feel it too can't you, the differences."

She could tell? His sword hand twitched, most of the immortals he had killed in the last millennia had been to prevent this, to eliminate those who might be able to identify him for what he was.

Amanda turned to her in confusion, "The difference?"

"Between you guys... You and Duncan are a similar strength but... you don't taste the same, and he," She pointed, "He's so much more powerful it hurts, and kinda oaky."

"Oaky huh?" Amanda asked with a smirk, "And just what do I taste like?"

She raised one eyebrow, "Sharp and tangy, like lemonade."

Duncan shifted in his seat and cleared his throat and nodded at Buffy, "Yes, well... I had noticed that sometimes you feel... less safe to be around."

MacLeod was already beginning to feel it? But then with the number of heads he had taken, especially recently, that wasn't particularly surprising. He had amassed as much power as Amanda in less than half the time. Duncan's instincts were beginning to recognise what he wouldn't consciously sense for another few centuries, telling him when there's someone powerful about, someone dangerous.

Eventually he might begin to get a hunch of who might be coming, and if he paid enough attention even begin to recognise the quickenings of those he knew. Make sense of what he felt when another comes close, as the slayer somehow could despite her age.

"Sometimes I feel scary?" she grinned, a feral smile that justified the fears he couldn't let go of. Which showed just a fragment of what she was, "What about now?"

It was like a veil dropping away, or no, that implies there was an understanding that something was concealed, more like a hidden door opening, revealing what he had never expected to find. The power washed over him, impacting on his quickening like nothing had for millennia, not since the last of the old ones died, many by his own hand, and everyone he met was younger.

He was on his feet, sword in hand with Duncan beside him, the boy scout ever ready to accept a fight he knew he couldn't win. Only Amanda didn't react not, he saw from the awe in her eyes, because she didn't feel it but because it didn't scare her. In the weeks she had been here the girl had earned complete trust and acceptance from someone who rarely trusted anyone but herself.

"How old are you?"

"Old enough that I get first dibs on calling myself 'Death'" She joked slightly awkwardly, trying to ease the tension the unveiling of her powers had caused.

"You can't be... I would have heard of you." Would have died millennia ago trying to kill her.

"Yes, well _that_ is because I'm not really an immortal, not your kind anyway."

He glanced at Amanda and Duncan, expecting to see exasperation and disbelief but instead there was something else, "Then what do you think you are?" What had she convinced them she was? Why had Duncan sat down, no longer primed for a fight.

"A super-powered slayer with a multiple personality disorder?"

Amanda laughed and even Duncan smiled but he knew what he felt, whatever she said, and when he remembered the feeling of her full power his only thought was that it didn't matter what she knew; the game had already been won.

* * *

"Did you ever meet a slayer?"

They were still wary with each other, sizing one another up, trying to use the knowledge of millennia to understand motives, expectations. Something he'd had lifetimes to learn while she spent her lives battling demons.

"Wouldn't you know?"

He was testing her, she realised, still not sure what to believe about the tale he'd been told, "Not if she wasn't me. They are there, the others, like memories of a dream but I can't get to them."

They sat together in silence as he mulled over the response, deciding what to think about this creature which threatened everything he knew. Finally he answered her question, "Yes, I met a few slayers. I even married one."

"You marr-" Buffy stared at him, the marriages she'd had in past lives were few and far between, "then you must have been her watcher."

"Yes." She had been one of his youngest brides. Long after he had chosen to marry only widows so the lack of children would be less noticeable. His infertility did not bother her, a wife that did not resent that inability in him.

"What happened to her?"

"What happens to all of you? She died, overwhelmed by innumerable vampires."

"When was it?"

"In Athens, not long before the Romans took it."

She saw him for a moment as he would have been then, a cross between warrior and priest serving in Ares' temple, "Have you met any since?"

"I avoided them."

"Why?"

"Hanging about those with a penchant for beheading didn't seem like a good idea." Her empty eyes bore into him, refusing to believe his flippant response, forcing something more from him. "Why do you think? She was my wife." He shrugged, "I didn't want to see that again, watch more girls die for a hopeless cause."

"Hopeless?" she repeated, her face for the first time breaking into a smile that didn't make him want to shiver. This wasn't scary, it was sad. It more even than the feeling of her quickening made him begin to believe her story.

"Do you truly think they will ever be gone, that the battle will end?" He shook his head, discounting the very idea, "That's as futile as a belief in the Gathering."

"You haven't noticed then?"

"Noticed what?"

"There are less of them, not just vampires but demons too." That soon there might not be any left.

_**She should have expected this, that Buffy would come to this place, be drawn in by the energies which swirled about them, and yet it was still a surprise. To find herself no longer alone in the battle after Kennedy and her companions had fallen about her, dropping valiantly one by one as the horde continued to attack._

_It was a shock when it was over, when their numbers dwindled down to nearly nothing and the mystics and their guards dove through the swirling vortex which the slayers had prevented becoming stable. The two Slayers watched as the last of their enemies dispersed into fragments of energy before disappearing, choosing the certainty of death in the unstable portal rather than attempting to fight the weary girls._

_"Why are you here?"_

_Faith shrugged, "Prophecy." Giles had explained in oh so painful detail exactly what was foretold but all she'd retained was that something about star formations would weaken the Hellmouth._

_They stood together in silence, looking over the field of battle stained blue by the blood of demons. Finally she asked, "You?"_

_"I felt it." Felt it like the thrust of her own stake into her gut._

_Faith nodded, she had felt it too, this gaping hole in the world that called to her, drew her on as she grew closer._

_"You were nearby?" had Buffy been hiding near here? Was this where she'd been all these years? No, Kennedy would have noticed if another slayer was in her domain._

_"No."_

_That word was a harsh reminder of how much Buffy had changed, how different they really were. She hadn't felt what the prophecies were sending her to until she had landed; this emptiness which drew her onwards. Buffy hadn't needed a prophecy to tell her she was needed here._

_"I don't get it." Faith broke the silence which had descended upon them again, the pair of slayers working in tandem to bury the dead, "Why did they keep fighting when they could have covered a retreat. What could have been so important to bring here?"_

_"Didn't you see? They weren't trying to bring something here, they were trying to get there."_

_"But the prophecy said..." Faith trailed off with the realisation that she actually had no clue what the prophecy had said, only that Giles had implied it might be very bad, apocalyptic even if the demons succeeded in using the weakened Hellmouth._

_Buffy smiled, "You have no idea what it said do you?"_

_"Well no... I'll have you know listening the way I do takes lots of practise!"_

_"Really?"_

_She assumed a superior air, "I carefully filter out the pertinent facts. What do I need beyond time, place and objective?"_

_"I suppose it could be considered a skill to somehow remember that without even hearing the reasoning behind it."_

_Faith smiled, enjoying the banter and just being in the company of the other slayer. Buffy seemed different, lighter somehow than she had been when she left Cleveland. "Where have you been?" the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, despite promising herself she wouldn't ask._

_"Here, there... everywhere." Buffy smirked mysteriously. "I bumped into Oz."_

_"His monks helped you."_

_"Yes." she confirmed in a serene manner which said nothing and everything, nothing about what she'd been through to get to this point, everything about how well she now controlled the slayer._

_"They miss you."_

_The smile which had been growing disappeared with those words, replaced by the locked expression Buffy had so often worn in Cleveland, hiding all her thoughts away. She turned away from her, not wanting to see Buffy like that, and collected up her weapons, preparing to leave._

_Having already made the mistake of mentioning the others, she had to ask, had to know, "Will you come back?"_

_"I can't. Not yet." She watched Faith's shoulder's droop and once again had to do something about it, "Do you need to go?"_

_Faith looked back, her smile returning, and Buffy knew she'd made the right choice.**_

"That's one of the reasons I came, why I stayed. There are less now to fight, those Vampires you saw me fight with Mac earlier were the first I'd seen in months."

"But..." There had always been a healthy vampire presence; it was a major city after all with a vibrant nightlife in every respect, "Even if you got them all when you came by now..."

"No, you're not listening to me." she smiled patiently, "I didn't find any vampires here."

He raised an eyebrow, the only sign of his surprise, "You weren't killing on the way here then, nothing to give them warning that you were coming? No possibility of word reaching the nests and sending them into hiding, making them run." As he should, as he would, ignoring Duncan's call. Distance himself from this girl until another could defeat her and make the game less skewed. But that would come later, tomorrow. Tonight he needed to establish exactly what he was running from.

"An exodus from a city like this? We would have seen evidence of that, had the overflow back from nearby nests to refill the void. There would be more than just one scruffy band here."

"Perhaps they went underground."

She laughed and the sound was terrible, terrifying a reminder of the power she concealed, "There's nowhere they could hide, nowhere I wouldn't sense them. No, they've been killed, and not by me."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

_**They had to open it._

_To seal this Hell away forever they had to give it free reign, open the mouth of hell wide enough to see it's fangs, and the awakening of the Hellmouth was something Buffy had felt halfway across the globe._

_"Need a hand?"_

_She had expected this, expected her to appear just as things were at their worst to save the day. Buffy always had excellent timing. Faith didn't respond, unable to break even for a moment from her battle to keep these creatures captive, prevent them from gaining purchase on the world in the brief time the portal had to be open before it could be closed. Instead she drew the scythe from it's sheath on her back and sent it spinning towards her, not bothering to wait and see if it was caught._

_Fighting with her was easy, they fell into a routine that might as well have never been interrupted by the years. One demon oozed past Faith leaving a trail of slime in it's wake and she was there, ready to pick up the slack, with the scythe glowing in her grasp. The colours of the sun, of blood, shone out from the blade Buffy held and sliced through the beasts as cleanly as the sharpened edge._

_It seemed like hours of endless fighting later that something changed, she heard, felt a change in the tone of the voices above their heads. The voices which had been endlessly speaking, chanting as they fought, drawing this world's magics back to this place and eliminating those which came from Hell. Moulding the power needed to destroy this portal._

_Once the chanting changed it was over in an anticlimactic moment, the demons and the place they had come from winking out of existence with a complete lack of ceremony. Leaving behind only their blood and goo, giving the slayers time to catch their breath._

_This time she didn't ask why Buffy was here, Faith already knew, instead she asked the only question whose answer she cared about, trusting from their time together that the question wouldn't send her running, "Will you stay?"_

_Buffy looked sharply at Faith, wondering all over again what she had been considering since the pull started, urging her to this time, this place; whether this had been a ploy to bring her back._

_"Not yet." She replied again over the shattered remains of a portal to hell. Her earlier reaction to seeing them had proven it wasn't yet time. With Faith it was easier. There was less history, or perhaps more, somehow less to forgive and forget. Her face didn't remind her of everything that had changed, everything that remained the same._

_"What made you do it?" Buffy asked, needing to know that this wasn't about her._

_"It was time" She waited, knowing her companion wanted more but selfishly unwilling to give it, wanting there to be a reason for her to remain. Her eyes fell on the scythe where it was held loosely in Buffy's grasp, but then, there were things she wanted to know too, "Have you heard the rumours?"_

_"That there's something…attacking them? That it's time to leave?" The triumph in Faith's eyes confirmed her guess, "Yes."_

_"They kept trying to open it, to find a way out." She shrugged, "It seemed safer this way. Willow found a way to shut it for good."_

_"She always does."_

_Faith nodded, the witch always managed to get her own way. "Is it…"_

_"True? Me?"_

_"Yeah." She breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't had to finish the question herself, hadn't had to call Buffy a murderer. The creatures which were scared weren't all bad, long peaceful races turning to war in a bid to escape, escape... something. Something Faith had to believe wasn't Buffy, because if it was then she needed to be stopped, and irrespective of their relative strength Faith wasn't sure she could do that._

_"Yes. And no, or not all."_

_"So…"_

_"I've been travelling, taking out a lot of vamps and demons." Faith snorted at the understatement, remembering the dust left in their wake when she had travelled with Buffy, "But in the last year or so there have been less, even in places I've never been before. I arrive and find nothing, not even peaceful demons."_

_"Could it be the potentials?"_

_"No." Buffy had wondered that, early on in the first few empty towns. But some of the massacred clans of demons had been strong enough, skilled enough that she would even now limp away from a fight._

_This was something at least as strong, something far more powerful than the girls who once, were Slayers. They had been Slayers for a few fleeting hours and stretched the new abilities to their limits, but just as they grew used to the strength, the speed, the power, it was taken from them, leaving only a shadow of what they briefly were behind._

_Most of them had died, the ones that had decided to stand by a duty that was never really theirs. It had been years, longer even than many slayers lived since that fateful day, and one by one Buffy had felt them fall. The last of the fighters had died the last time Faith and Buffy met, on another Hellmouth. The only ones who still lived were those who had chosen to ignore the world they had momentarily been a part of._

_The voices which had once been so distant resumed and they were startlingly close, evidence of just how long they had been contemplating that thought. The scythe clattered onto the compressed earth floor, finally losing it's glow, the energy no longer emitting from it now that it was out of Buffy's hands._

_She didn't speak, if she had the others would have heard her and they would know. It would hurt them more to learn she had been and left than to think she hadn't yet returned. As the footsteps of her family drew closer, Buffy ran from them.**_

"If something's out there killing vampires and demons, what are you doing here?"

"Figuring out what I do when there's nothing left to fight."

He hadn't thought of that, it had been too long since he had been acquainted with a slayer's need for combat. What was it like for her, being so much more than the slayer's he knew, what would those urges drive her to do if her natural prey was gone.

A Slayer on the rampage. The image of destruction that thought evoked was more terrible than anything the Horsemen had wrought.

"Amanda says it's time to lay the table." Duncan's sudden appearance made Methos lose his cool, so highly strung from all he had learnt that he flinched away from the noise.

Methos sighed and stood, sauntering across the open plan living space to where Amanda and Duncan had been preparing dinner but when Buffy attempted to follow him Duncan lay a hand on her arm.

"Sorry for interrupting, I wouldn't have disturbed you but you know how Amanda gets when she cooks." they shared a smile, both remembering the previous week when inattention to their chef's needs had resulted in Duncan buying a new set of crockery, "I'm glad you're getting on so well with him."

"You think we're getting on well? He doesn't believe anything I say." She shrugged, "I'm not sure what he can teach me."

"Don't underestimate him, he knows far more than he ever lets on and..." He trailed off looking back at the kitchen where Methos was leaning against a counter with a beer in hand, watching as Amanda's stirs of the pot grew more agitated by the second. "He grows on you." Although right now Duncan couldn't remember why.

"Like a fungus?"

Duncan smiled, "Perhaps; like penicillin - useful in unexpected ways."

"We'll have to see. He's not planning to stay." His desire to be away from her was tangible, the tension still there in his entire body despite his attempts to project languidness.

"Don't worry he'll help you, he only runs when his head's in danger."

Buffy shook her head, how were these two men, immortals, friends. They were so different, one only out for himself, for his own survival; she knew that now that the stories she'd been told were confirmed by their meeting, while the other placed himself in danger to protect others. "Then he should be moving faster now, Amanda looks ready to take it off with a spatula."

He turned back to where fish were being viciously flipped over in the grill tray before it was lifted and unnecessarily swept by Methos on its way back in the oven. "Unfortunately he knows he'll be okay if he antagonises her..." The old immortal didn't react but Duncan saw a patch of skin burnt red for a moment before the quickening removed any sign of injury. In retaliation Methos moved into Amanda's way, grabbing himself another beer to lazily consume, "We'd better intervene, or we wont get to eat."

~ To Be Continued... ~


	29. CHOICES X The Shadow of Death

_**A/N:- **And even more... this is the chapter I've been hoping to reach, to share. As with anything I'm uncertain of it, but then I'm too much of a perfectionist, too ready to tweak just a little more to ever be certain. I would adore some critical reviews - please tell me what's wrong, what doesn't make sense, how I can improve. Thank you to Village Mystic for all your detailed reviews as you read the story._

_This is apparently another long one, a chapter which in writing came so easily but in retrospect is over three times the length of most others!_

_**The Shadow of Death**_

It was amazing how often the sound of traffic woke her. Not just because of its noise, its smells but because for the majority of her lives it wasn't something she'd experienced. There had been the clatter of hooves, the rumble of wagons and carriages which had been present in enough of her lives for some sound to be normal, but those sounds were alive, came with the presence of a life, an energy which could be quantified by her other senses, the ones which tracked demons. Cars, machines were empty shells in comparison, passing by like animated corpses.

Buffy stood with a sigh, she reached for them, for the other reason she couldn't simply return to sleep. The sense that something was near, something dangerous enough to spark her senses, even if she now knew to call them friends. Duncan was there, his quickening subdued by sleep, a trait of the immortal calling card which had no doubt saved innumerable heads, allowing friends and foes to pass by unnoticed like ships in the night. Duncan might have been sleeping, but the strength of the power she recognised as Methos' hadn't lessened in any way; he was awake.

She was slightly surprised to feel anything, his reluctance to remain telegraphed too clearly, his fear of what she was.

_**Cassandra had sent her._

_The thought burnt through him like the shock of an ancient quickening, like taking Silas' head._

_He did not feel guilt, guilt implied some wrong doing, something he should be punished for and in the depths of his soul he did not believe that was the case. They had done terrible things in a terrible time._

_He took another bite, allowing the dinner conversation to wash over him, hoping his shock hadn't been too clear._

_No, he did not feel guilt over what he had done to Cassandra, but he could perhaps regret some of it. Regret that when the choice had been made to let her live, he had then decided to keep her. Keep her when none of his brothers would have noticed the faint quickening of the body on the sand._

_Regret that the lessons he had given her could only be taught through pain and suffering. Those lessons had been good, had allowed her to become the oldest female immortal, but he could still regret making that choice for her, forcing her to live._

_Would she have fared as well left alone in the desert, left to wake amongst the corpses of her adoptive kin? Neither of them would ever know for certain._

_She still hated him for what he had done, he knew that, could feel the power of it burning into him, and yet she chose to send this girl here, to him. She was asking for his help._

_A faint smile appeared on his lips._

_If this was his penance, at least the compensation for his treatment of her no longer required his head to be mounted on her wall.**_

For a moment Buffy rethought her plan to get some water and perhaps a book from downstairs, but shook the idea away, why should she allow him to dictate her life? She put on a robe and headed out of her room, leaning on the railing that ringed the first floor landing to look into the atrium below. Methos was lying on the sofa, calmly reading as if unaffected by the nearby quickenings, by the presence of those who might take his head.

She smiled and jumped, using the path of least resistance rather than walking around to the stairwell at the far end of the balcony. Buff paused, poised on the balls of her feet, waiting to see if he had heard her drop but no reaction was forthcoming his body looked relaxed, asleep. As if he had dozed off while reading, but the power of his quickening denied that thought. He was awake, and a man who had lived so long, avoiding or defeating those after his head, would have to be paranoid enough to notice the sound of her landing.

He moved so suddenly, so swiftly that it took a few seconds for Buffy to realise he had moved at all, and by the time she noticed that there were only a few more ticks of the clock before she needed to raise her hand, catch the blade singing towards her throat. They stood frozen listening to the clock on the wall, his sword held firm in her grip, nowhere near its target.

"You have a bedroom you know."

He raised an eyebrow and lowered his sword, "Yes, I know. It's nice that the Boy Scout gave into the inevitable and bought a place which could actually house the guests he frequently has visiting."

"Then why aren't you using it? Why play possum on the sofa?"

"Why aren't you using yours?" Methos drawled.

He was testing her again, always. Judging her reactions, inciting them with his words and actions, trying to understand what, who she was. She wasn't sure herself. Perhaps he would tell her if he figured it out.

"I couldn't sleep, too much noise."

"Noise?" He could hear the quiet rumble of traffic through thick brick walls but nothing to jolt someone from sleep, and Methos liked to think that he had good hearing. Over 5000 years and countless quickenings had seen to that, "Oh, because of your superpowers?"

It wasn't that he didn't believe her, she had realised over the awkward meal shared by four Immortals and one Watcher. This sarcastic disbelief was merely another method of extracting information, just as Duncan used his strength and Amanda her wiles, his way forced her to defend her thoughts and reveal the truth.

"Yes."

Buffy refused to elaborate, to give into his game, if he wanted to know more as his words suggested, he would have to ask. Instead she moved across to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water and Methos a beer. She sat down opposite him and waited.

He hadn't asked her at first, when the dust of her actions was settling and there was feral energy flowing through her veins. He hadn't even asked when they were more formally introduced and he recognised the brush of her quickening on his. She had seen a question behind the piercing gaze, behind all the cutting remarks, but he had held it in.

"Why are you… she… " He trailed of, thinking of the girl who had been his to train, to protect, his to love and cherish. The girl he had failed. Methos forced down those thoughts; there must be no guilt, no grief. He couldn't allow anything to affect him so much, especially after all these centuries, couldn't allow a display of weakness, those could get an immortal killed. When he spoke again his words were surer, his voice even and clipped, "The ones I met were strong, fast but not like this, not like you. Why didn't other slayers have this much…" Why was the power other slayers were gifted with was so limited when being more could have saved them, enabled them to save themselves and so many others.

He knew why she was immortal. That wasn't what he was asking. That they had discussed in a group session where Buffy sat silent and his friends filled him in on what she was. This was a different question, a harder answer. One she hadn't. intended to give; had once promised herself she would never reveal. A promise made over a decade ago when looking across the hall of the Hyperion, but Buffy understood that she needed to break that promise.

He needed to know in order to help her. She had to tell him to convince him to stay. She needed to take a leap of faith or leave, and leaving, giving up, wasn't something she was willing to do.

"Once they did." Buffy could remember those times, when a child with the strength of a monster couldn't withstand the urge to fight. The horror of the tribes when someone so young walked steadily into the night only to come back covered in blood with primal joy burning in her eyes.

"Long ago when the line was created, all slayers eventually went crazy, consumed by the force which gave them strength, by what it did to them when it took over at night."

Buffy paused, half expecting disagreement, some sort of comment. Because he questioned everything. Because this was something that wasn't in any of the books, something not even the ancient scrolls he had once known would have commented on. He knew a lot about slayers, and she had learnt long ago that the more someone knew the less open they were to changing those ideas. To learning that they'd been wrong all along.

But Methos sat silent, those attentive eyes taking in every nuance of their conversation, waiting for her words. Their conversations were no longer a joke, this was something he didn't know, couldn't understand and for that he was willing to acknowledge her as an expert and to listen.

"To preserve their warriors' sanity they diluted the power through an object so that it would slowly infuse a new Slayer. Allowing her to adjust and adapt to her new abilities as they grew."

And they had done so much more. She hadn't admitted it, not to her friends, not even to Faith, especially not to Faith. She couldn't tell them what it had been like at first, what the Guardians had done. That in the beginning there hadn't been any other slayers. There was just her, fighting her way through each life, a life that inevitably ended in a haze of pain, in a pool of blood. And then she would be reborn, not later but immediately. Reborn as a babe with a terrifying strength and an urge to kill.

_**They had chained her, restrained her._

Again!

_The word, spoken in hatred sung through her blood, but never in her memory had there been anything with the strength to subdue her, constrain her. Nothing like the weight of these chains that held her fast, strong enough to withstand her wrath._

_That power which usually only took control at night rose up within her, demanding release, retribution against those who would dare to do this. And as it did the sickening loss of control came._

No!

_She tried to cry, her soul desperate to retain its daytime dominance, but the beast was having nothing of it. It would not allow this and so her thoughts sank back into the swirling oblivion of the thing that used her body to hunt its own kind. And as always she was lost amongst thoughts and urges she could barely understand, watching through feral eyes as it fought._

_The women approached her holding something, something that was hers. Every cell in her body said it was so, this shaping of metal into a thing as beautiful as it was deadly. She tried to reach for it, the beast forgetting the other pieces of shaped metal that held her in place. A shout, the inhuman sound of a roar, escaped her, becoming distorted by the trees as it echoed out from the glade._

_That buried fragment of her that was still human recognised one of them and the flicker of betrayal spurred the thing that controlled her on, turned its fury into something more vicious and bloody, more human. Into a need for vengeance._

_The Slayer had made its judgement._

_They began to speak; overlaying words of power with which they controlled her bindings, forcing her to kneel, her arms stretched either side, palms towards the women. The one who held it came towards her and she threw herself forward, trying to find some non-existent slack in the chains that kept her in place._

_The woman used the blade to cut deep gashes into each of her hands, deep enough that it would take some time for her healing abilities to mend, leaving blood flowing freely from the wounds. The timbre of the chanting changed and suddenly she could move, free enough to grab at the one who had hurt her._

_She got it! This thing that belonged to her, her weapon. A wave of satisfaction flooded through her, and the beast in control didn't see how the woman had held it out to her as she backed away, didn't care. It was focussed on the feeling of her power, their power flowing to it and through it, cycling through the earth that men had tied them to untold years before._

_The voice of the girl, buried deep in a crevice of her mind, screamed to beware; this was what they wanted, but to no avail. It wasn't worried about these humans. They had never been able to hurt her._

_So the demon watched as trickles of blood travelled in, around this shining weapon in her hands, watching as blood tainted it, bound to it, coloured the blade. It marvelled at the rare beauty, symmetry of this thing, forged by magic from hell-steel so long before humans thought to shape metal._

_She had held other weapons of blended steel formed over hell fires, huge unwieldy things made for the demons she fought. They were nothing like this, incomparable to the thing created to fit into her hand. Fashioned from a broken blade, as its owner had been before it, transformed by humans into a tool for their protection._

_The chanting stopped, the completion of their spell sending a surge of energy scorching through every cell of her body, burning out the dark and leaving a weakened form behind. She dropped under the weight of that force, collapsing to the ground with the weapon falling before her._

_There was a sting through her hands as open wounds hit the grass and she fell back onto her elbows, unable to support herself on even hands and knees. She felt weak, oh so feeble, fighting for breaths that should have come easily. Delving deep for the strength to raise her head._

_It was then she noticed she was in control, could think clearly. That the demon was… It was gone! No, she thought frantically, feeling for that power that had been hers since birth, not gone but very much diminished._

"_What have you done?"_

"_You could not continue to do this. The lives you live have been shortening, the insanity coming quicker. Your soul needs time to recover, time to rest, a chance to control the thing bound to it." The woman it had recognised, her mother, replied._

_Another of the robed women who had been chanting came forward to place a hand upon her shoulder. Now they didn't stay out of range, didn't fear her. She flinched away from the weight on her shoulder, angered by the action, "This will give you that chance, allow you to learn to use the power you have as it increases."_

_More of them were laying hands on her now, and from those touches she felt threads of magic flow through her, heal her. She rolled back onto her heels, feeling better but not stronger, "But I'm not… how can I defeat them like this?" How could she complete her duty, her reason for living?_

"_With the scythe you can tap into more power without it controlling you, destroying you."_

_She did as her mother's voice urged, lifting the weapon from its place in the grass and feeling that familiar strength surge into her. That was better. The girl marvelled how even now, with the energy of her demon flowing from the scythe into every pore, her control wasn't gone. She was here at the forefront of her mind, not buried beneath the mindless beast._

"_Your physical improvements are only a part of your strength. The thing you have been lacking in your battles will make up for it, the unpredictability provided by intellect. A spirit healed of the damage caused by the life you must lead will give this, allow you to use humanities greatest asset in its defence."_

"_For your soul to heal you must rest. Rest until you are able to fight again."_

_Rest. The very idea seemed strange, foreign. Alluring but so far from her grasp, "But… if I rest then everyone will be left defenceless… what will happen without-"_

"_The changes we have made don't mean that the people will be left unprotected. The power is now bound to blood, stronger than ever before, and though it will always seek you out once your first bloods have come, it will also empower others. Those with spirits strong enough to bend the power to their will. While you sleep, while you heal and grow they will take over your position as our Champion."_

_A younger woman ran to join the group, interrupting one of the witches before she could speak, "They are coming!"_

_Suddenly the glade was filled with motion, two of the women helping her to her feet and passing their hands over the circles of metal about her wrists, making them melt, bend away from her, free her. They grabbed at her unfettered hands, pulling forwards, away from the men that came for her._

_When the shadow men reached the glade all that remained were the chains forged from the demon blade. The only evidence of what had occurred. That their creation had been changed forever.**_

"The breakdown of our spell destroyed that, allowing the full force of the slayer to come into me."

This was the part she hadn't told the others in the Hyperion. Not because she wanted to spare the potentials, but to avoid hurting the other girl whose entire existence had been changed and systematically destroyed by the calling. Faith had let her calling define her and yet was always forced to play second slayer to Buffy, she didn't know what learning that it was a later manipulation of the spell that caused her to have powers in the first place, that caused any of them to have powers, would do to Faith.

"Why aren't you insane?"

She wouldn't have answered if his question had the same superior tone to those earlier in the evening, but he sounded genuinely interested, no longer trying to force her confidences, "Because I'm not just a mortal infused with power. My soul is older and now it can fight back." She smiled as the appropriate words came to mind, "My will is as strong as the Slayer's. My kingdom is as great. It has no power over me."

And this was the other reason she hadn't told. She hadn't wanted Faith's life, the lives of all those other slayers, to seem meaningless because it wasn't, they weren't. The others hadn't been feeble imitations called to pass the time; they were so much more than that. They had been needed; a necessary part of the path to what Buffy was now. She could still feel them, those souls dotted about the world, reminding her of the debt she owed all who had stood in her place.

Without what the Guardians did, without the support of others who could share her burden, her spirit would have never been able to get strong enough to control the slayer. It would have been destroyed. Slowly but surely ripped to shreds by the harsh edges of the thing taking over at night, by what it made her do. Until all that was left was the fight, without any cause to fight for.

She could remember that insanity all too well. It was the thing driving her to hold onto those chains of belief. Chains that, when she saw them in her minds eye, looked just like those ancient shackles wrought from the demon-steel of the thing infusing her. Just like the thick fibre bindings the Shadow Men had used to restrain her.

"So you're as powerful as the original slayers, but able to control it." He stated.

"No, well yes… but no. I'm more powerful. My spirit wasn't the only thing that got stronger over time." The slayer was stronger now than it had been then, but so was she, and far more so. Time had allowed the weakened being the Shadow Men had been able to manipulate to regain it's strength. But by then the chains that tied it were locked in place and there was nowhere left for it to go.

"And this time you can't die." Buffy shrugged, causing his eyebrows to shoot up, "You don't know? You haven't been…"

"Beheaded?" She smiled at his jumpy reaction to the word, "Not intentionally, but yes in the first few years I got into lots of fights I shouldn't have ever gotten out of…"

Got into fights in search of that instant, that flash of life, of the desire to live in the moment when she had all and nothing to lose, when something within her always arose in search of survival. She had felt that surge for a moment when the blade passed through her throat, in the instant when she wasn't certain whether this almost sure fire method of destroying her opponents would work on her. But she had survived, the slayer power beginning its task of repairing the wound before the sword exited the other side.

"It didn't seem fair. I had done what I was supposed to, fought until I died… and then I came back and even then, even then it was meant to be fleeting. There was meant to be an end. But now… now there wasn't.

"So I sought death. But I don't know how to do it. I thought it would change once I left them but I still…" It hadn't changed, nothing had but how well she controlled the demon until that brisk evening in an Italian graveyard when she was told there was a chance to do more than exist.

"Even without them you still don't want to die?"

"It sometimes feels like I've wanted to die for most of my life. I thought they were what kept me here." She smiled sadly, "Once they, no one needed me anymore, I could let myself lose. But however much I want it to be over, I can't seem to actively seek it, to completely give up. I can't just… let something kill me. I'm not even sure what could."

An explosion might do the trick, she mused, or then again she might be like the Judge; splattered parts that would eventually come together again unless held apart. Would those fragments be aware, able to tell that the particles which had once been her arm were now flying the world over, riding the wind. But there was a reason she hadn't sought out this end, one she hated to admit.

"You're a survivor" Methos stated, interrupting her thoughts.

He seemed almost proud that she had this quality he cherished in himself. But she wasn't, not really, "Surviving should be about passion. You shouldn't be able to come away from a battle for your life with nothing but death in your soul." and yet she had, so many times.

"Not necessarily. I've seen others like that, who have…"

"Given up?"

"Yes, that is an apt description." better than calling it a death wish.

He had given up for a time, or more accurately grown bored, and in a fit of altruism had offered his power to aid the defeat of Kalas.

Would he really have let Mac take his head when he offered it? He hadn't contemplated the nature of his drive to live before, how it might affect his ability to make such a sacrifice. Would he have been able to remain still while Duncan swung a sword at his neck, or like this slayer who wanted her endless battles to be over, would that instinct rise up within him in the last moment, an overwhelming urge to fight in his own defence.

"And?" She prompted, forcing him from the thoughts he had become lost in.

He shrugged, "Immortals I've known who got like this, well, old or young they either snap out of it or lose their head, intentionally or not. I can't help but wonder why you're still here, wonder if you being here is proof that whatever you claim, inside you is a will to survive."

Buffy laughed darkly, a bitter, twisted sound which seemed to echo about the open space, "I think what's inside me is just fear. I'm scared that with all we changed, if I do die I won't be able to go back to that place of peace. That I don't deserve to."

She knew what it was to want that end, to crave death, peace. Was it strange that she had never before contemplated anything else coming after? Could that be a symptom of her life, how often she saw that look in a vampires eyes as whatever fragmented residue of a soul there was left, finally departed from the shell. Had Spike been right that it was mere curiosity, seeing the moment of joy in the death of others? Or was it another shared memory, like those that gave slayers fighting skills; had she also remembered the calm between lives. Was that why she had never feared it?

But now any certainty was gone, leaving a swirling vortex of doubts and possibilities. And that, really was what was so strange, this fear, not of something happening but of what came after.

"What have you done that's so terrible?" The sarcasm was back, but this time it was directed at himself, or rather at the man sleeping upstairs for daring to judge something he would never understand.

"Other than bringing the first evil to earth and ending a line of champions that's been protecting us since before the demons were banished?"

"Yes other than that."

The faces of all those she'd failed, all those she'd killed, rose up in answer. She had done terrible things in the name of humanity's survival. All she could do was trust that not doing them would have been worse.

"So many things. Nothing." Did it matter if the result was the same? "It was a waiting place. It was somewhere between here and there where I waited between lives, between callings. If there's no more calling… then how can I expect there to be a place to wait?"

She had waited somewhere, somewhere she had told Spike was heaven but could have been nothing more than a void because in that place she was safe. Surrounded by love and strength. Those were the only things that had mattered.

With all that change, how could she hope that there would be a place for her to rest? She was still tied to the power but it was different, a change even from the way it had once been when the world was young. She didn't know, couldn't predict what might happen.

Would there still be slayers if she was killed? Would another girl, one of the potentials be called in the way they had for so long? Or would it return to the way it had been before? There was no way to be sure, nothing to go upon except the words of the beings through the gateway of lost souls. Oracles who had told her and Faith they would be the last. That there were no more Chosen.

Even that didn't make things certain, didn't answer Buffy's questions. It didn't have to mean what she feared; it could be that her end would be it, the end of this line of champions for good. The thing she had so casually claimed blame for.

That was the best scenario; that the world be left unprotected, and it was even better now it was becoming a world no longer requiring protection. The alternative, the other option was so much worse. A return to the old ways when at the slayer's death a newborn had been infused with her spirit and a demon's power.

It wasn't the same time, the same world, as when it had last been that way. Then it had been known among all tribes of humanity what to look for, what do with an infant slayer. Now no one would even know to search for her.

Methos laughed, laughed at her words, at her serious mien, "Why is it that you discount this as being a will to live, to survive. It is what drives most of us, fear of the unknown, of what comes after death. It is what makes us value our own lives above others."

Perhaps that was part of the problem, she had been taught for so many lives that hers was something to be given in the service of others. That she was destined to fight and protect those who could not and even in those lifetimes when she'd disagreed with the sentiment, she had been unable to deny the thing within which demanded that she fight. How could she question the words when everything inside her told her to follow them. To walk down into the master's lair knowing death awaited her.

"Ultimately what survival comes down to is how important your current existence is to you, however much you wrap it up in the pleasant lie that others depend on you, that the world does."

"If nothing matters, if I have no purpose, no one depends on me; I don't know who I am." She tried to find something, anything outside the fight to give life meaning, but came up empty, "I once fought for a life outside slaying, for something real, now everything is an act, a lie. My calling is even a lie now, the demons are leaving, the world is safe, with or without me."

She was old, he realised again but this time without the fear, the panic accompanying it, so terribly old and yet awfully young. She hadn't lived for millennia as an immortal, recreating yourself every decade or two to assure anonymity, she had grown up and fought, each life as real as the next.

She never had a chance to learn how, if you pretend enough, you can become the lie and the lie becomes real. That the real lie wasn't the white ones you told to others about who you were, what you were, it was when you went against your principles. That the truth is easily hidden in the lies because the truth is who you are, irrespective of name or birthdate. That even who you are is recreated, changed over the course of time as naturally as in those who age and die.

Instead she had learnt over a series of lives to live to the extreme and now that the risks which had embodied her every existence were gone she didn't know how to find that bright burning sensation of a life on the edge.

He understood finally what Cassandra thought he could teach her, "What you want to learn from me isn't something that can be taught. How can you teach someone to find joy in life?" Each and every immortal he knew came at it a different way, lost it for different reasons. There were as many variations as in humans themselves; infinitely different yet somehow all the same.

"I once rode across a continent searching for joy at the end of a sword, mistaking adrenaline, endorphins for something more. You throw yourself into battles you can barely escape from in search of the same thing. Hunting down that moment when you fear death, when your love of life rises up unbidden, stripped of emotion, of memory and pretences.

"You need to learn that memories don't have to be regrets and that the quiet joys of calm, of peacetime can be as thrilling as the rush of war." Something he hadn't known how to teach his brothers, either back then when he had come to his own realisation that the last thousand years had changed nothing, or more recently when his inability lead to their deaths.

Did Cassandra know, he was too cynical not to wonder. Did she know how little he could hope to help this girl, was this a joke, a mirage of the path to forgiveness. Or did she truly believe his presence would assist the girl in finding what she sought. His own regret wouldn't allow him to leave, no matter how slim the chance was that he could help.

~ _To Be Continued... _~

_**A/N:- **Don't worry (too much... I have to admit to being a little distracted by KttP) about my saying this was the point I wanted to reach... there's another section I'm also keen to get to you and hopefully I won't have any difficulty writing the sections between. Review if you feel that the chance it might help is worth it._


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